


After Dark

by SaltyWords (agent4hire22)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Canon Compliant through Season 10, Case Fic, Castiel (Supernatural) Whump, Dark fic, Dean Winchester Whump, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, First Time, Grace Sharing, Heavy Angst, Hurt!Cas, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Mark of Cain, canon divergent after season 10, dark themes, horror fic, hurt!Dean, questionable medical procedures, spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-25 17:54:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 67,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17126039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent4hire22/pseuds/SaltyWords
Summary: Everything can be lost in the dark, Dean already knows that. What he doesn’t know, is that something very important can be found. If only he had some light to help him…





	1. The Ghost in the Machine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aoichou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoichou/gifts).



> Important Notes: Remember the plot of Season 11? Yeah, this is definitely not that. This is “The Darkness” Stephen King-style: a little horror, a lot of angst, and a nourishing amount of feelings. This was a story I started a few years ago that I decided I needed to wrap up for my own mental well-being. If you read it as a WIP, it’s since been revised, edited, and is now complete. It is, however, largely unbeta'd, so I apologize for the typos. But since we're on the subject, a very special thank you to @aoitrinity for her undying support of me through this project. And for what beta'ing she could (what I let her), and the mass amount of comfort she provided while I clawed my way through this story. I could not have done it without you, my friend. And had I not scarred you so severely by not finishing this, I don't think we would be seeing it now. I owe you a thank you for that--I think.

ONE

Ghost in the Machine

✣✣✣

There was a name for that feeling smacking Dean upside the head, but he couldn’t pin it down. Name or not, the sentiment congealed in his belly at the sight of that rolling wall of black and ash, and he let the debate slip out like cornered screams. _Screw it—_ he decided as the Impala bottomed out, tires spinning— _‘fucked’ will do_. 

The Juanita’s sign groaned as buckled tree limbs and debris pitted the plastic. It cracked into shrapnel, pelted the siding. 

Something had changed with that burst of lighting inside the cantina, but not in the way they’d wanted—not really. And Dean knew why. It was because they hadn’t _removed_ the Mark, they’d let it out. The evil was alive again. Like the wind, it was fitful. Only, it wasn’t whispering anymore. Now it screamed. He felt its claws like a heated blade, sunk down to the bone, and the chassis groaned under his feet. 

The Impala tried on a pair of wings and caught air. He tossed a wide-eyed look to Sam, but his brother didn’t have enough time to catch it before the dark swallowed the windows up. The cabin pitched, and not even the vice grip Dean had on the steering wheel was enough to keep him in the seat.

They both made an ugly sound against the back window.

——— 

The wind blew through the lot. Pebbles of glass danced to it, jumping like spiders through the tufts of wildgrass. Dean felt it lick his face, cool and cleansing where the blood wet his skin. His eyes lolled open and all he saw was sky. An inky black, with stars spread through it like a laser show at the planetarium.

He was floating, the world, a dreamy state of wonder. The flap of wings near his head knocked Cas' name to the front of his consciousness, and Dean was sure it was him; Cas was coming back to find him. Coming back one more time.

_Cas_

Dean blinked slow, eyelids dragging molasses. He felt lightheaded. The ground took a steep turn and he blinked back the fugue of darkness. The rustling wings anchored his clutching mind, brought him instantly back to a million micro-moments from his life. All the times Cas’ hand fell heavily on his shoulder, and the light sucked them in like they were nothing.

_Cas_

The absence of his touch left a pit in Dean now. Dean pictured him, a faded outline in the sky. Those blue eyes singing. Tears suddenly burned him, blinded him. _This is it. This is how I go. After everything?_ He supposed Cain had been right— _then, you’ll kill the angel Castiel,_ he’d warned. _And that, I suspect, will really hurt._

Dean had done it. There were more deaths than one, after all, and this was the kind that Cas would never recover from. But, the evil was always gonna get what it wanted, no matter what they did. That much was clear now. He didn’t need to see Cas’ expression again for the sick to find his stomach.

He’d do anything to make this right. To have just one more night… 

He turned slow, scalp pulling pebbles from the lot. A crow looked back at him. Slicked black like tar, it hopped through the blades of grass and poked at the shining pebbles of Baby’s tears. The pieces of what defined Dean were up for grabs. The wildlife was hip to it. It was a free-for-all auction; top bidder got the first bite of his flesh. 

Beside him a shadow moved. Large and imposing, it shifted through his periphery, floating like driftwood in choppy seas. But, shadows didn’t move like that. They danced away from the light. Played along the B-side of refraction. They didn’t walk.

A wave of darkness and the heavy rumble of breath drew Dean’s eye. The crow by his head cawed and took flight. Its slick feathers painted the sky above him in an urgency he just couldn’t seem to grasp as its barbs blotted the space inside a haloed moon— _Feathers_ , he thought. _Dark as Heaven made them. Holy shadow dipped in fluorescent blue._

Shaking hands grabbed his face, drips of water painting his cold skin warm again. His name was coughed from the edges of broken breath, distinct and rough, and it flipped all the lights back on. He pulled a smile from somewhere outside himself. 

“Hey, Angel,” he said. And if the whole night was off the table, he’d take one more touch. “Did you see the stars?”


	2. Fallen Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who might not remember at this point, this scene picks up right after the 10x23 cut.

TWO

Fallen Angel

✣✣✣

The sick cake of dust questioned Castiel before he had a chance to open his eyes. _Years I’ve sat here,_ it whispered. _Can you smell the buildup of time in this filth? Can you feel the lost moments? What do yours look like, Castiel?_

He pulled his eyes open. Key-holed sunlight played above him, ripples on the ceiling. Turning and swaying against the high, exposed industrial beams. It seemed like he was drowning. Something had a death grip on his ankle, and he was down on the bottom of the Municipal Waters, watching helplessly as the sunlight was snuffed out by the swirl of black Leviathan.

He blinked the throb at his temples back, a twinge of finger-nailed shame scratching at his brain. The world was stiff, his thoughts dragging behind him a couple beats too slow. _It’s just the sun coming through the glass,_ he told himself. _There’s no water. It’s just the ceiling. Lightplay on the beams._

He glazed hands down his face, and the darkness of them caught his attention. He pulled back, spread his fingers and saw the blood. His cuffs, his sleeves, all the way up his bare wrists. Crimson stains cracked dark, dry lines down the channels in his skin. It looked like he’d been wrist-deep inside someone’s chest. His stomach rolled. He pulled open his jacket, combed hands over his belly. _Not mine,_ he realized as a roll of horror festered in his gut— _What have you done now, Castiel?_

“Yew can’t sit on the floor all day.”

A voice cut through the silence and Castiel jumped. He squinted through the darkness until he found her; that laced, Scottish drawl was as distinct to him as a fingerprint. “Rowena.”

She moved from the shadows and smiled, her ruby lips pulling tight against her stark white teeth. “Go on now, get up.”

“What did you do to me?” His voice caught tight and dry, because… maybe that wasn’t the right question. “What did you have me do?”

“I didn’t do an’athing!” she chirped, flicking a wrist dramatically to her breast. The light danced against her, catching the jewels on her midnight blue dress, and highlighting bursts of orange in her dark auburn hair.

“The blood, Rowena. Whose blood is it?”

“That’s your blood, little fish.”

Castiel crawled to his feet, straightened through the ache in his back. “No,” he said. “I’m not injured.”

“No?” She circled around behind him, and he turned with her, noted the arch of her brow, the kick of her heel. “Maybe that’s just the color of your hands, deary. I think you’ve stained them that way.”

 _His decimation of heaven… the campaign room… the Leviathan… the angels’ fall… the Mark of Cain…_ The measure of death trailing Castiel sat fat in his periphery, burned into his memory like a brand. He swallowed, and it felt like needles all the way down. He needed to get the blood off. It suddenly didn’t matter how. Rip the skin from his bones, tear it away. Just get rid of it. He scrubbed his bloodied knuckles along his coat.

“I don’t think that’s gonna help,” Rowena muttered.

“What did you do to me?” He demanded, feeling the cool in his head go. “What was the spell you cast? Stop it—Now!”

“None of what I did is even half as bad as what yew do to yourself. Besides, you’re wasting your own time. Asking the wrong questions. I thought yew wanted to know whose blood it was. It’s yours.”

“You said that, and I told you it’s not.”

Her brow cocked and she tossed her head toward the ceiling. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat, believe me, dear. I’ve skinned plenty. You shouldn’t be askin’ me, is all. You should be askin’ yourself. You’re just not seein’ it right. Yew need the whole picture.”

“I won’t play your games—”

“I think it’s curious. I mean, you’re soaked in the stuff, aren’t yew? Blood, I mean. Yew only seem to have a problem with it now.” She tossed a thin finger his direction, circled around him again, her heels clicking and echoing in the empty cement cellar. “You’re upset with me right now because yew think I’ve asked ya to kill someone, but yew kill for Dean Winchester all the time and that doesn’t make ya angry. Tell me that’s not true.”

“What?”

Rowena shrugged, paced back. “Fightin’ the good fight. Putting all those bad guys back where they belong. _Murder_ … ”

“Dean doesn’t ask me to murder for him—”

She giggled. Stuck her tongue between her teeth playfully. “Ah! It’s all free will, yew say? That what ya mean? I’m not so sure. Yew seem pretty possessed, actually. It’s alright. No need to be ashamed. It’s a very human thing.”

“I’m an angel,” Cas stuttered. “I’m not capable of being possessed.”

“Oh, you’re more than capable, I’d say. You’re already in up to your eyebrows. I mean, yew say you’re an angel, but I don’t see it. All those choices you’re always makin’ weigh pretty heavy toward the human ideal, after all. Those pesky lil’ monkeys and their feelings. Tell me about your feelings, Fish.”

Cas shook his head, eyes stuttering. “Angels were commanded by God to protect humanity, and I—”

“No, no, no.” She wagged her finger. “Where’s your God? Yew turned your back on Him a long time ago. You’re a heathen angel. A lot like your big brother Lucifer.”

Castiel caught the dancing sunlight again, noticed the way it seemed to be contained in the square around him, highlighting the vast ceilings and cold, gray cement. It turned the dust bunnies into an organic glitter, falling like snowflakes through the light. But the shadows… They weren’t just dark, they were black. It looked like the world ended at the edge of that jittering square. _Surreal._

He bit the insides of his cheeks, squinted. “How do you know anything about me?” he asked, carefully. “You only met me a few days ago and you haven’t left this room. I’m still hexed. I’m still hexed, and this is all in my head.”

She smacked her lips. Her thin cheeks sucking in as she pouted a smile. “Close,” she nodded. “I’ll answer the question—happy to answer the question if you’ll just answer mine first.”

“Undo the spell.”

“Tick tock, Castiel.” She cocked her head, poked that rude finger at his face again. “If yew are still under my vicious lil’ spell, ya better play along or I might have a tug at Pinocchio's strings.”

Castiel’s heart jumped as the memory flooded him. The way her lips had moved so smooth and methodical, and then he’d been compelled. He’d have done anything for her—everything for her. She’d only needed to ask. Her spell had accomplished something two thousand years of Heaven’s brainwashing hadn’t: it’d forced his hand. And, any moment it could happen again. She would speak and Castiel would cease to exist. Replaced by nothing more than a mindless, powerless heavenly warhead. “I don’t understand what you want,” he said biting his cheeks.

“I want yew to tell me why yew kill for Dean Winchester.”

“I don’t kill for Dean.”

“Liar.”

“He’s my family, Rowena. I do what I have to, to help my family.”

“Maybe,” she agreed. “But are yew his?”

“I don’t understand,” he said tossing shoulders. “Yes?”

“Are yew sure? I mean, if Sammy were in trouble and little Cassy were in trouble, who would Dean save?”

“I don’t expect Dean to choose me over his brother.”

“That’s sweet. That’s very sweet. I know yew don’t. I can see it in your face. But, deary. If little Sammy were in trouble and little Deanie were in trouble, who would yew save?” Castiel fell quiet, clenched his teeth. The muscle in his jaw fluttered and drew an ache at the base of his ear. “There’s your answer right there. All nestled up in that shocked silence.”

“What do you want? What does this have to do with anything?”

“Yew gave up everything for him, _Fish_ ,” she said pushing forward, rubbing hands down the front of his coat. “What’s become of yew? He’s givin’ ya nothing for your effort.”

“He’s given me family.” Tears threatened him. “He’s a good man. He has a good heart. That means everything.”

Rowena shook her head, picked up his tie and ran a hand down it. “No, deary,” she said throwing sad eyes up. “Family doesn’t mean everything. Yew don’t do any’a this for family. Yew do it for something so much more powerful than that. It’s the most dangerous thing in the universe. The same thing that drove Lucifer from heaven. And the same thing that’ll convince yew ta kill...” She pulled his tie and stretched to whisper in his ear. “Only, he doesn’t love yew, Fish.”

Cas ripped back. “Stop calling me a fish!”

“Why? It’s what yew are! You’re just a little fish in love with a bird. Tryna grow wings an’ leave the sea. It dunna work, Castiel. One of yew’ll drown or dry out.”

Castiel bristled, grace prickling at the surface of his skin. “Enough! Undo the spell or I’ll destroy you.”

Rowena laughed. The careless and childlike quality of it burrowed into his bones. He slammed a hand against her forehead and funneled his grace through her, focused it and envisioned it cooking her insides, charring her eyes from her skull. In only a moment, the bright light would fade and the witch would be nothing more than a smoldering husk of red hair at his feet. Her spell would be obsolete, burned out with her passing. Her unclean magic and wicked laugh would be forever forgotten, never to hit his ears again. But, when his grace ticked down, and the blue faded, she was still staring at him, her cat-eyed liner still perfectly placed. Her ruby lips tucked together in a pious pout. 

“Yew can’t kill me,” she smiled. Castiel’s heart pitched drumlines in his ears, and he stumbled back. He bit the insides of his cheeks, looked away, saw one of his handprints in the dust at his feet. She followed his gaze, dragged a heel through it. “That’s only yours if it comes in blood, little fish.”

“I’m not a fish,” he whispered. 

“Then tell me whose blood it is,” she said again, leaning close, keeping their eyes pinned together. She ran two fingers down his chest, trailed down his belly, plucked his belt, cocked a smile. “Cuz, from where I’m standin’, it looks like yours.” 

She pulled back, and bright red blood danced tendrils down her palm, her wrist, soaking into her velvet sleeve. Castiel stumbled from her, gripped his chest. He was soaked through. Hot blood blooming flowers through his shirt, trailing down his stomach, splatting over his black shoes. He tripped backward, fell, and the cold floor bit through him like venom.

“You’re digging your heart out, Castiel.” She stepped above him, looked at him through the tip of her nose. “Is it worth it? Look at yew, you’re pathetic. So desperate for something you’ll never have. Keep destroying the world, _Fish_. Keep sifting the righteousness from your rubble of broken excuses. Keep clawin’ that heart from your ribs. You’re nearly there. You’ve almost got it now.” She dropped to her knees crawled to him. “When yew rip that beating shell from your chest, will yew tell me how it feels? Will yew tell me if it was worse when yew did it? Or after he helped?”

“What?”

“Yew don’t even realize… Give him the chance, and he’ll be happy to help yew carve it out.”

She ducked to the side and suddenly Dean was there, staring Castiel down, crouched over him, face drawn and hollow. Skin waxy yellow under the splatters of dried blood. Castiel gasped as Dean slapped a hand to his chest, driving the angel blade deep into his ribs. Cas jerked, grabbed desperately at Dean’s hand. Choked and sputtered against the nerve storm of pain. Blood smothered his breath, filled his lungs. He tried to gurgle Dean’s name, but pulled nothing out. Dean didn’t move, didn’t smile. Blink. Dead and ravaged, he looked like a corpse. His expression bore into Cas like a tick; unnerving and unrelenting, he drank his fill as Cas writhed. “Ain’t that easy?” he whispered, flat. “Your turn.”

Rowena popped up over Cas again, her long, curly hair waterfalling over her shoulder, dangling above him like strips of flypaper. “You’re under a spell, alright,” she hummed with a smile. “I think it’s love.”

——— 

Castiel bolted upright, huffing into the dusky cellar. He gripped his chest tight, the echo of agony flitting away like the edge of a dream as he blinked at his clean, dry hand. The distillery was real again — _it_ _felt real._ The setting sun cast shadows through the room, threw dividing lines from the exposed beams.

_Dusk._

His stomach churned, plucked something very human inside him and he swallowed a sick, watery mouth. The ghost feeling of dried tears clung to his face like a mask. His body shook. He pat a pocket, and felt the edges of his angel blade, tugged it out, and stared at the clean edges. _No blood there, either._ He had it, and it was clean. “Crowley?” 

Cas’ voice echoed through the chamber. That was all he remembered before everything went red and Rowena had taken control: Crowley. But Castiel was alone now, unless he was going to give any credit to the dust. 

He plucked his cell from his pocket and moved a shaky thumb over Sam’s name. Stopped as his stomach bubbled. He tugged at his tie. Suddenly felt like he needed to make a break for the bathroom before he was retching on the floor. Four times. Nothing but bile. He collapsed on his back, hands dragging dirt over his sweaty face. Something was very wrong. Everything was very wrong. The dream clawed at him like a bed of nails, but all he could really think about was Dean.

He rolled to his side, palmed the floor, watched the dust disturb beneath his hand. The way it clung to him, building like a wick dipped in wax. He thought of the way children pinned their tiny hands into wet cement. A snapshot in time. A catalog of innocence. Castiel’s handprints didn’t match that. His innocence was never there. Only naiveté. His handprints were a hollow promise, a signature of pain and regret. They were the wake of mistake and his kept building.

He pulled his knees to his chest. He needed to know if Dean was cured. He felt it as profoundly as he did his own heartbeat. _Only…_

 _It’s because you want something you’ll never have,_ he told himself. He clutched his cell phone, looked at the screen.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, and he powered it off.

 


	3. Redux

THREE

Redux

✣✣✣

Consciousness found Dean as a five-fingered alarm clock to the face. He sputtered awake, sun-blind and spinning. “—Dean! Hey, hey, hey! Talk to me! You breathing—?” Blood in his mouth bubbled chocolate milk noises in his throat and he strained against it a moment too long. Sam shoved him sideways, and the broken-glass shift of his ribs etched a groan out of him strong enough to clear his airway.

_What the hell_? He grasped a free-floating thought from the primordial ooze he was trying to use as a brain. Shallow and soft, a couple breaths teased through his chest, and if he didn’t know any better— _and he didn’t_ —he’d have thought there was a steel blade shoved through his windpipe.

“You got it,” Sam said leaning so damn close, his hair was sticking to the blood on Dean’s chin.

_Goddamn cheerleader._ Dean reached up blindly and pushed his brother back, rounded it out with a pat, palm smearing in the blood and sweat on Sam's face. “Don’t we already share enough?” he croaked. “Doesn’t gotta be air too.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“I might be. Word’s not in yet.”

“What hurts?”

Dean blinked hard, tried to focus the craggy thoughts. “Um...” 

He tongued some jagged debris in his mouth— _glass or a broken tooth—_ and turned to spit. His tongue was too fat and slow to boot it, so it drooled sloppy. His words were basically doing the same. _Pennies_ , he thought, watching it string out pink. _So fucking sick of the taste of pennies._ “Everything, Sam,” he answered finally. “All of me hurts.”

“You break anything? I don’t see any bones sticking out.”

Dean groaned and rolled back. Huffed at the mottled gray sky. _This is not the Impala. I’m not in the Impala… but, I was. Where the fuck is the damn car?_ He looked around. Grass below him, gravel. The sun sank deep on the horizon, a haze eating the edges out.

Sam snapped his fingers. “You with me here?”

“Huh? Yeah. I’m—” He blinked back the stupor. _Ribs,_ he thought, flexing his stomach, touching softly at his chest. “My, uh—”

“Same three?”

Dean nodded. Right side, number nine, ten, and eleven. Same three bastards he couldn’t keep healed for the life of him. Sam knew it. He’d broken one or two of them himself on occasion. That bottom floater was damn lucky if it was still attached at all. Seemed like every time they got sewed back up, Dean was kicking ‘em out again. “Yeah, but what’s new, right? How ‘bout you? Still got all ten fingers and toes?”

“I haven’t counted.”

“No better time.”

Sam crumpled to the ground beside him. Combed his hair back, and got his fingers stuck in all the knots. “Yeah, maybe later.”

The nonchalance bubbled a smile in Dean, and the sensation hit him sideways. Old and forgotten, the emotion slunk back to his doorstep like a beat dog. It tucked-tail and shifted everything into place. The whispers were gone. The Mark… was gone. His heart jumped and his knuckles ached. Even through the new gashes and broken bones, he felt the old wear and tear. His muscles were worn thin, his body ridden hard, but there was something heavy sitting on those knuckles… A bad memory sitting at the edge of his brain like a sour taste.

_This is what it feels like_ , he realized watching the tendons pull under the thinned skin on his hand. _Like_ w _aking up from a coma, totally fucking out of place._ “What’d I do?”

“No.” Sam was quick to jump, eyes wide and ready. “This isn’t on you, Dean. This is not on you. Don’t—”

“And, this? What’d we do, Sam?”

“What we had to do. I won’t apologize. Saving you was the right thing. Whatever that was—”

“The Darkness— ”

“Whatever the Darkness is, we’ll figure it out. Like we always do. The consequences of what you were gonna become were worse.”

“But, you don’t know that!” _For fuck’s sake, Sammy._ “How many times we gonna go around before we get off the ride? How bad’s it gotta get?” He didn’t have the energy to fight, and he could see Sam already had his back up, but the conversation was an old dance they never could seem to step away from.

“What do you want me to say?” Sam shrugged and winced, some pain in his shoulder working against him. “Seems like it always has to be me to make this call—then, I try, and you talk me out of it. I’m sick of being the one to fail you. I couldn’t do it again. I wouldn’t. Not this time.”

Dean sighed, rubbed some grit from his eye. “I ain’t tryna fight,” he said, picking at a sparkle of glass he found in his hand. “I really— I don’t wanna fight anymore. I’m done. I’m tired.” 

He propped himself up on an elbow and caught sight of the Impala, half-buried in the wreck of the Juanita’s sign. She was upside down and broke to hell. Dean’s stomach sank. “You can fix it,” Sam mumbled, following his eye. Dean wondered how many times he was going to rebuild her before he said _to hell with it_ and junked the damn thing.

The fields around them had shadow pooling in the lowland, the smell of sulfur and death permeated the breeze. Dean felt it on his skin. It was whispering, and the voice was familiar, but his head was quiet, and even if they’d just opened Pandora’s box, he’d take that. 

“What if I can’t this time?” He mumbled back. “What if this is the one where she stays broke?”

“You always fix it—Listen, we’ll just… we’ll get back to the bunker and dig into the lore. We can at least get an idea of what we should be looking out for, and you can work on the car in between. That way we’re prepared if this Darkness thing crops up. And, I mean, at least we’re not going into it blind, here. Death told us— ”

“That we’re absolutely fucked?” Dean chuckled, tossed a rock. “ _If this Darkness thing crops up_ … Yeah, this’ll be the time it’s all fine. Death was just being dramatic.”

Sam shrugged again, arms wide. “We’ll… we’ll figure it out,” he puffed. “I’ll call Cas to come pick us up—” Dean caught Cas’ name between the teeth and flinched “ —and we’ll figure the rest out from there. But, just, let’s do it one thing at a time.”

“Sam… ”

“I mean it. It’s gonna be fine. Just relax. Let me worry about it right now. You—take a load off, okay? Sleep. Eat. Go pick up a girl—whatever you want. I don’t care. Just take some _me_ time.” He plucked his cell from his pocket and pecked the screen, tried for a smile and it missed Dean by a mile.

Dean watched his brother, waited and heard the voicemail click through. “He’s got it off or something. It went straight to voicemail.”

“Yeah, cuz we’re the last two assholes in the universe he wants to talk to,” Dean grunted.

“That’s not true. Cas doesn’t blame you for this any more than I do.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe that was true before.”

Sam did a double take, “Before what?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“No, not _nothing_.” Sam worked him over a minute, then Dean saw the moment it clicked. That rancid realization rippling the tension between them into something so much more fragile. “You tried to kill him,” he said, and it wasn't a question. Sam didn't need to ask it.

A sob caught in Dean’s throat and he knew it was showing in his eyes. _Fuck,_ the whole thing sounded even worse out loud than it did rattling around his head.

“You tried to kill Cas, and he never told me... When?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

Sam scanned the dirt, reading it like it had his calendar. “...No,” he said. “No, he didn’t tell me.” He cleared his throat, looked away. “What happened?”

The memory hit Dean quick—Cas on the floor, covered in blood, that hand, shaking on Dean’s wrist as he pleaded—not for his life, but for Dean to reconsider. To stop, to just _Please don’t go_. He mentally shoved it away, both hands and a held breath, and tried to rub holes in the back of his eyes like it would scrub the memory from his brain. “He didn’t wanna watch me murder the world,” he said, voice just a hair over the sound of the wind. “That’s it. He didn’t want me… to give up. And I tried to kill him for it.”

Dean’s knuckles ached.


	4. Terms of Endearment

FOUR

Terms of Endearment

✣✣✣

The sky was ashy. Grays like splintered shadow muddled the horizon. A hot breeze tore through Cas’ coat and did nothing to tame the sweat pooling at his lower back. It was muggy. Muggier than he remembered the day before, and even if he hadn’t had the nagging memories of humanity clinging to his clammy skin, he’d have known it from the sidelong glances he was getting: the coat looked ridiculous, and he was standing out like a sore thumb.

Normally, he wouldn't care. It wouldn't matter because he’d be on the move, either to or from the bunker. Either to or from some other town, city, country, _continent_. Wherever it was, the people he met along the way were always a foregone conclusion. They’d all come and go long before Castiel ever had a chance to entertain the notion that he might look _silly._

But this was different. This time he was on his way to nowhere, and the people’s eyes were extra heavy. His cell felt like an anchor in his pocket, weighed down by a mess of reactive decisions in the wake of his bleeding heart. It was his lifeline, and it was dead in the water. He fidgeted with it. Stuck a hand in his pocket and turned it over in his palm. Ran a thumb blindly over what he knew was a black screen, and imagined it lit up. Dean’s name scrolling over the front in an iridescent white. What it would be like to accept the call and hear his rich voice again.

_Hey, buddy. Where are you?_

_Hello, Dean. I’ve missed you…_

_Yeah, Cas. Me too._

Cas squeezed it, and the sides of the case bit into his fingers. It was a nice thought, but nothing more than a fantasy. The truth was, one phone call could go so many different ways, and with Dean, it often tracked bad.

_I told you to leave it alone—_

_I couldn’t watch you turn, Dean. Sam and I—_

_This ain't about Sam. This is about you. This is about the promise you broke. I trusted you and you went ahead and broke the world anyway. Again._

_I broke the world,_ Cas told himself. It settled in his mouth like a bad taste, and he waited for the shame to hit him. But it didn’t. All he could see was Dean. That damn stamped, red arm Mark—wiped clean again. That sullen, dark face—lifted and free. Happy.

 _He has a chance to be happy_. Cas absorbed the horizon, smelled the lingering stench of farmland on the breeze and sighed. _Let the other shoe drop,_ he decided. _I’ll go down fighting and be glad for the opportunity._

Regret wasn’t going to find him here. He had none.

A passerby suddenly knocked into his shoulder and jarred him from his thoughts. “Shit, sorry,” the man said. He barely glanced away from his phone, arm's length into the sky. “Hey, you got a signal?”

Cas instinctively pulled his from his pocket. He tapped the home button and watched it react like a rock in the sun. “Uh, no. It’s off.”

“Me neither. I got nothing. Bastard wireless companies bleed you dry and you can’t even get a signal when there’s a damn cloud in the sky.”

The man wandered on his way before Cas had a chance to reply, but he looked up at the sky anyway, squinted at the muddy color of it before turning the phone in his hand. He considered powering it back on.

“Two-dollar special, grumpy. Just for you.”

He whirled around and blinked at a thin blonde in front of him on the sidewalk. She smiled as she unfolded a sandwich board and popped it at the edge of the walk.

“Pardon?”

“Beer.” She drew a finger and pulled it over the lettering on the wooden sign, doing her best Vanna White. _Tuesday Two-Dollar Taps, Only at Wonderland Bar_ , it read. “Just pointing it out, ‘cuz you look like a guy who needs a drink.”

Cas looked around, blinked again. “I only drink on occasion,” he said stiffly.

“Well, I’m sure we can think of an occasion!”

 _An occasion?_ His grip on the high-tech paperweight was about as helpful as his aimless wandering had been so far. “Okay,” he said. _Why not? I’ve got nowhere else to be._

———

The beer was cold. It purred down his throat as the glass cooled his fingertips. The stool was hard, and his coat draped behind him like a shroud. He had nowhere he was supposed to be, but watching the curious blonde with the bright-red mouth tuck behind the bar, he knew he was exactly where he needed to be.

The bartender had a way about her. Elegant and sure, she seemed to dance around behind the bar in a practiced tango. Castiel decided he liked her, and almost as an afterthought, decided Dean would like her too. She was quick at the tap and always kept the glasses full. The bar was clean. Smelled like lemon pledge and wax. The muted overhead lights licked a creamy yellow light through the dark corners, and the coasters were red like her lipstick.

He took a swig of beer and watched a man down the bar fight his wallet out. “I don’t got tip money,” he mumbled around a hoppy slur.

“No worries, Jerry. I’ll just remember it next time and I won’t throw you any smiles.”

“I gotta have the smiles, Al. It’s why I come.”

“You come for the Coors. You stay for the smiles.”

Castiel watched him shrug and rub his sunburned neck, stray gray hairs trailing out from under his brimmed cap where he clearly needed a fresh haircut. He pulled a crumpled ten from his wallet and balled it onto the countertop like a dead spider. She glanced at it but didn’t move. “You’re short,” she said instead.

“How much was it?”

“Twelve with tax.”

He scratched his neck again. “Can I do a tab?”

“No tabs. You know that.”

“Well, I gotta do a tab cuz I’m short.”

Castiel shifted and pulled his wallet, popped it open, thumbed a couple twenties. He tossed them out, raised his beer to the turn of curious eyes and took a drink. _Cheers._

“Shit. Hey, buddy. Thanks!” Jerry gnawed his cheeks and peeled over, gut hanging over his leg as the stool groaned. He plopped a fat palm on top of the green and tossed one to the bartender. He pulled his ten back, and nonchalantly folded the second twenty into his palm, and slipped it from view. “You’re a good guy. I could tell when you walked in. It’s the trench coat. Real smart. This guy’s a businessman, Al. A good one. Million-dollar deals. Right?” He shoved a chubby thumb Cas’ way. “Give ‘im the good smiles. You’ll get a big tip.”

“I’ve only got good ones,” she hummed. She stole a glance Cas’ way, but when he didn’t react, she seemed to let the trucker’s sleight-of-hand slide.

“Ya got me there,” the man chuckled. “ Just give ‘im the uh—” he rubbed hands over his chest, then brushed it off. “Never mind, you know how to get the tips, honey. Hey, can I… Can I get some change for that?”

“No.”

“Yeah, you keep it. There’s your tip, eh? I wouldn’t leave you hanging.”

He popped off his stool and made his exit. The rusted bell above the door played him out.

“That was good of you,” she said after the silence settled thick as the heat. She plucked the empty glass off the wood top and wiped away the weep of condensation it left behind. She tried in vain to tuck a burst of bright blonde hair behind her ear, but it fell forward again and tangled in her lashes.

“You shouldn’t let him demean you,” Cas said finally, thumbing his beer. “He’s had four wives and is currently incubating some fairly serious cirrhosis. He’s hardly a pinnacle of advice.”

“Seriously? Do you… Do you know him, or something?”

He quickly sank back into his beer. “Uh, no. I was making a joke.”

“That’s an oddly specific joke.”

“It was my job, a long time ago.”

“What like a life insurance sales-stand up act?”

He squinted, shifted on the bar stool and felt his coat tug where he’d apparently sat on it. Another bead of sweat danced down the cord of his back. The AC was barely making a dent. “Something like that,” he said as he pulled his tie a hair looser. “It’s hot. Why is it so hot?”

“Because it’s summer, and you’re wearing a coat.” Her eyes ate a line through his chest, bumping back up into his face. She flopped the bar rag into her hand, then tossed it in the bin behind her. “Anyway,” she said, “Jerry’s harmless. A run-of-the-mill trucker type. Comes in and drinks his body weight in Coors Light, makes an excuse for why he can’t tip and heads back out. To be repeated the next day, _Groundhog Day_ -style. I don’t know how the guy woulda got married once, much less four. Who’re these poor, desperate women?”

Cas squinted. “You mean the movie?” he asked.

“The—huh?”

“ _Groundhog Day_ the film?”

She blinked at him, rag crawling back with the unsure slide of her hand. “Yeah, you know, _second verse same as the first_. Predictable. Unlike you, _Mr. Trench Coat in a Heatwave_. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”

“I, uh, I don’t drink often.”

“Right. _On occasion._ But, tonight was a good night? Seven-thirty on a Tuesday. What’s the occasion?”

He gulped the beer, and drained it, spun the glass and watched the silt of bubbles crawl along the bottom. _Lone Star_. The taste brought him instantly back to every moment he’d ever had it with Dean. Listening to him talk, noting the new freckles that had popped up on his nose since the last time. _Sun damage_ , but for some reason, every single one of them tweaked a symphony of notes in the pit of Cas’ stomach that had no comparison. The thought of never seeing him again settled heavy. He set the glass down and rubbed a distracted finger at the ghost ache burning his chest. “Celebrating,” he said at last.

“Celebrating?”

“New starts.”

“Ah!” A smile cracked through her face and she was suddenly all ruddy glow of white teeth and wild blonde hair. She popped up taller than before as she leaned on the bartop, presumably perched on the edge of a low-slung shelf or nearby stool, and pulled the water tap on. She filled a shot glass, raised it high as the edges slopped over. “I’ll cheers to that any day!” she said, knocking it back and gulping it down with the kind of animated gusto Cas only ever saw when Dean was thrashed. She plucked his empty cup from the front of him before his smile had a chance to fall, and refilled it, plunking it back down sloppy. Cas watched as a drool of foam oozed over the side. “Drink, son!”

He shook his head, obeyed and took a sip. Her bright smile fell back to normal and she sunk back down to the normal height. “But, for real,” she said, nose curling up as she scrunched her face. “Lay it on me. What’s her name?”

“Pardon?”

“The girl getting her new start. I mean, it’s clearly not yours or you wouldn’t be _sad-sacking_ all over the front of my bar.” Another fluff of hair tipped into her eyes and she bat it back. She hooked a foot around a stool, pulled it over, and plopped on top. “It doesn’t take a super genius—which I am, by the way—to see that you’ve got a gaping hole in your chest where a vital bodily organ used to be.”

Cas shook his head. “No, I’m not—”

“Look, we can keep bullshitting if you want, but there’re only two reasons for a guy like you to be sitting at my bar on a Tuesday evening. He’s either a budding alcoholic—” she popped a finger up to keep count and quickly shook her head “—but you’re clearly not a drinker— Or second, a plain-and-simple _broken heart_. No point in denying it. I’m onto you, so… spill, Constantine.” That landed hard with Cas and he shoved a fist into his stomach, tried to quell the sudden storm with a sharp breath. He licked an uneasy line into his lips and trailed a finger through the dribble on his glass. 

“A friend once told me a good bartender is better than a great shrink,” he said, pulling Dean’s words carefully from his memory and laying them out like fine china. “Is that true?”

“I admit, I have some pretty kickass insight into the human condition.”

He watched her, fingers pulling around his beer and drawing it close. “His name is Dean,” he admitted, peeling it from the lining of his throat. Her eyebrows bumped up, and she sat straight. The surprise melted from her face quick, and she recovered with a nod.

“I owe you a shot for that,” she said nodding. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“No—”

“Yes.” She flipped a shot glass into her hand, plopped it in front of him, and filled three fingers of golden tequila. The first fifth she could reach without getting up.

He tensed, watched her. “I think you have a misinterpretation of the relationship, though,” he mumbled to the slog of alcohol sliding toward him.

“Do I? Take your shot.”

“It’s important, in context, that he’s my friend.”

“Okay.”

“We’re like family.”

“Yeah. I get it.”

“It’s the truth.” _Or, it was,_ he thought. His mind sunk into the feeling of the cold floor under his back. The sting on his face and the ache of his broken wrist. That hateful stare angled down the blade at him. The way _that_ had hit him so much harder than all of Dean’s punches combined.

He huffed. Whatever expression he must have made got caught with curiosity and worked behind those dark brown eyes of hers. She nudged the shot glass over and he took it, kicked it back and swallowed the angry squirm of liquor down. “We’ve known each other a long time,” he continued and was surprised when she filled it again. He took the next one more quickly, swallowed it easy. “He’s taught me a lot about… people, family. What _free will_ really means. Taking responsibility for the repercussions of it. He’s helped me to realize both good and bad in humanity and myself. How to live in the gray area between the two, where it seems like everything exists. That sometimes we all step over the line despite the best intentions… but that it’s not a reason to hate.”

He stole the bottle and poured himself another shot, knocked it back, and went for a fourth.

“Whoa, Keith Richards, slow down—”

“What I mean to say is, he’s shaped me as a human—I’m sorry, what was your name? Al?”

“Alice, yeah.”

“Alice, his values and advice, they’re something to be had. They have the power to break the bonds of inherited spiritual slavery—so to speak. What he’s given me… there aren’t words to express my gratitude.”

The warmth of the alcohol blanketed his throat and curled happy in his belly. Tequila wasn’t usually on order in the bunker, but Castiel decided he liked it all right. If he hadn’t known different, he’d have almost thought that everything was going to be okay. He tipped his head, eyes sliding over the flashy foil label. _Perhaps that’s what Dean meant when he likened bartenders to psychiatrists…_

Alice squirmed it from his distracted grip. “A little bit of liquor loosens you right up, doesn’t it?” she said, a little tick of a smile licking at the corners of her lipsticked mouth.

“I’m sorry. I have more money… ”

“Okay, Eeyore. Settle down. You know my name, so ante up. Gimme yours.”

“Castiel.”

She blinked it back. “Castiel? That’s, uh, unique. Is that… Icelandic?”

“Ancient Hebrew. ”

She smiled at that and he wasn’t entirely sure why. “Okay… Castiel,” she said again. The stool under her rocked on the wood. “So, Dean shaped you as a person, and you owe him the whole kit n’ caboodle. But you’re sad now, because… ”

He fidgeted the cool glass in his hands and watched the beer shiver. “I’m not sad. I only mean to repay him, and it’s recently come to my attention that I’m more harm than good, so I’m... I was leaving.”

“Leaving? Oh, you sweet thing...” She hummed and curled a hand under her chin. “I get it now. You can’t convince yourself to stop loving him, so you’re running away.”

Castiel caught a wave of embarrassment and tried to quell it, but the heat came through his face anyway. “Wha—no,” he puffed. “Dean is my friend.”

_Why is this a theme now?_

She tipped forward, drawn so far onto the bar top that Cas could smell the light hint of carnation in her perfume. “It’s too late. You already told me you do.”

“I didn’t.”

Her dark lips drew into a thin line. “Ya did, though.” She flipped her hair up, and the shaved undercut struck him odd. “Someone who’s _just a friend_ isn’t the first person you name when a stranger asks why you’re heartbroken. But besides that, when you call him your friend, it’s… there’s something so much more there. It’s stuffed with such a profound sentiment, sweetie, it basically oozes pink. Question is, why do you feel guilty about it?”

Castiel huffed and realized his fist was balled into his stomach again. _Because I’ve gone from angel to human and back again,_ he thought. _Because all those feelings I earned in the interim never sloughed off the way my thirst and hunger pangs did when my grace came back. Because for some reason, they keep growing and growing, and no matter what I do or think or say, they’re still starting to crack the sidewalk and Dean doesn’t want any more obstacles._

“Because I can’t have them,” he whispered.

“Why?”

A knot of anxiety balled in his throat. Likely the same one from his gut, just bouncing locations as his thoughts preyed on unbraided nerves. “For… _so many_ _reasons,”_ he choked. “Not the least of which is, he doesn’t… he’s never shared the sentiment.”

“How do you know?”

“I just… _do_. I understand my place. What he’s looking for… and what he’s not.”

“But, what if you only think you know? What if he’s actually waiting on you?”

Cas tripped on that assumption and blinked. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“Casti—can I just call you Cas? Easier. Cas, it’s like this: sometimes guys are just thinking about the purchase price, you get me? Maybe he’s trying to figure out who’s gonna foot the bill. Whether it’s gonna be him, or if you’re gonna pony up. Maybe, just maybe, he’s always been waiting on you because he doesn’t have the emotional credit. Thing is, you can’t know. Not without asking—or doing. It’s when you start trying to think for him, that’s when you get into trouble.”

He scaled her face, the way the fledgling lights highlighted the toffee-sweet brown in her eyes, those dark red lips working at the edge of her teeth. He wasn’t sure if it was the liquor or the dream, or Rowena, or the tinkling notion that Dean was _Dean_ again and Cas had yet to see him— _maybe never would again_ — but the question found a way out. “What do I do?”

Saying it felt like he’d admitted to a dark, dirty secret.

Alice’s face went serious. “Kiss him,” she said, dark.

Cas choked and recoiled. “I can’t do that!”

“Why?”

He huffed, looked at the beer in his hands. Memories of the taste of it mixing with a fleeting thought of Dean and the musty smell of his cotton jacket. The way it always mingled with Dean’s cologne and tangled Castiel’s fingers into his stomach just to keep the situation under control. A kiss would be too much to handle. Instant disaster.

“Because. It’s too much. Way too much.”

“It’s a damn honest thing to do,” she said, hands running down the sides of the tequila bottle. “Everything you need to know would be in that reaction.”

“Yes. I imagine it would be the fastest way to say goodbye,” Cas quaffed. “Other than leaving… which was my actual choice, if you’re keeping a record.”

She carefully filled the shot glass, kept it neat. Hit the guideline dead on as she chewed a thought. This time she was the one who took it, swallowing with a grimace. “Listen,” she said finally, fidgeting on her seat. “The problem is, you’re treating this like a zebra. But it’s not a zebra, dude. Things aren’t black and white. People like to think they are, but they’re not. Nothing is. Stuff isn’t just _art_ or _junk_ , _good_ or _bad_ , _straight_ or _gay_. It’s fucking technicolor, or neon-bright, or scratch n’ sniff, I don’t know. It’s fireworks in the dark, man. You can’t try to read it from a page or write an algorithm to solve for _x_. It’s abstract and interpretive. Your answer is buried in that mess of chemistry between you two. It’s in his reaction when he’s with you. How long he looks at you, or if he just glances. If he takes his time like he’s savoring it, or if he lets it pass him by. Whether or not his eyes set up camp at that beautiful fucking mouth of yours, or if he skims over it and moves on like a moron. And, after all this time, if you’re still not sure… then the only way to find out is to plant a good one and see what grows.”

“A kiss,” Cas said slower this time, more than a little horror crisping the edges of his voice.

“A kiss,” she agreed. “If you want an answer, that’s how you get it. You can deny feelings to the ends of the earth and back, but it doesn’t make them go away, does it? Makes ‘em worse. Makes everything harder, sharper, sandpaper gritty. That kinda shit has a way of piling up, and I’d say you’re stacked Chrysler-high at this point. I can see it in those baby blues. Words aren’t gonna cut it, even if you thought you’d get a straight answer.”

He watched her, sized her up. The honest lean in her body. The eager discretion in her face. Nothing in it said she was lying, but then again, Castiel was never great at reading body language. What he was sure of, was that everything in her posture said it was a lot harder than she was letting on. A gamble on all fronts, best played by those with an impenetrable poker face. “You make it sound easy,” he said, “but that feels… impossible.”

She poured another one-ounce dose and pushed it toward him with a soft smile. “Naw. You’re just overthinking it.”

He took it and let it sit in his mouth this time. The alcohol spitting mean against his taste buds, both waking him up and lulling him back into a warm kind of dream. He sloughed his jacket, and tossed it onto the stool next to him, revelling for a moment in the rush of cooler air. He wanted to thank her, it was only polite, but he wasn’t sure it was honest. She’d, in fact, just thrown a wrench into everything he thought he understood and flipped the world.

He pulled the cell from his pocket, and it somehow felt simultaneously immovable and weightless. A paused breath. _But, it could go so many ways…_

“You gonna call him?”

“I don’t… I don’t really know what to do.” He looked up. “Why are you helping me?”

She smiled. “Because I’m not just a good bartender, I’m fucking clutch, dear.”

The bell above the door chimed again, and they were both surprised to see Jerry stumble back in. Clothes ripped and dirty, eyes peeled wide. He looked through them, but there was nothing ticking in his face this time. Not like before.

“Jerry?”

He pawed back up to the bar, staggered messy onto a stool, and stared at the table top. Sweat beaded down the sides of his thick face, pouring from under his hat, and practically steaming from his bright red skin.

The muscle at the back of Alice’s jaw popped, and when her uneasy glance found him, Castiel knew this was all completely off. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Jerry's eyes stumbled over and tangled in Cas. Stalled and petered out.

“Jerr—Did something happen? Why are you dirty? Talk, man. Speak.”

Expression dead and gone, he swung back to Alice, eyes bloodshot and jaw shivering. “M-Monsters,” he said.

Cas bit his cheeks. That word was red hot. Familiar acid in his ears. 

"Monsters?"

“Where?” Cas asked quietly.

The trucker’s attention swung back. He held up a palm, stubby hand shaking, and blood oozed from a gash down the middle, dribbled onto the waxed wood. 

“Like… Everywhere.”


	5. Shadows

FIVE

Shadows

✣✣✣

Traffic bottlenecked as they hit town, just past the turn to the old grain silo. Sam could see it in the distance, the silo, blotting its own little spot out on the horizon. Through experience, he knew that the lead-paint lettering _Lebanon, KS_ had ghosted into _banon, S,_ through time and wear, only, he couldn’t see it now. The bloated face was faded out with early evening shadow. 

The sky was dark to match, even through the mist of sunshine hanging in the atmosphere. Clouds were collecting in the corners, reaching, and knitting together, melting the sharp lines of architecture muddy, and staining the landscape in a sullen haze.

Cars piled in the roadway, honking. A few edged over to the shoulder as if it would help them see. Dust and kicked gravel picked away what was left of the clarity as Sam rolled to a stop. A couple of teens on the sidewalk nearby huddled together, cellphone between them, faces cast dark. He ran a hand nervously through his hair and his fingers caught in a clump of glued blood. A quick glance in the rear view mirror told him he looked worse than he felt, and he felt like shit.

_Better than Dean, at least._

His brother was slumped against the passenger seat, arm cradled over his ribs and eyes half-open. Whatever energy he was mustering seemed twice borrowed. Sam imagined someone ripping open the car door at any moment, and Dean just toppling out. No fight in him at all. 

Truth was, Dean was supposed to be napping, but he couldn’t seem to shut down. His tired eyes had hit every murky landmark as they’d driven by like everything was a Las Vegas billboard— _any minute there’d be boobs_. He fidgeted with his phone, flicked it on and off again, but didn’t say anything. His attention wandered instead to the same spot Sam’s wanted to sit, tangled in that dark silo and muddled field.

“I can’t tell you what it means to me to have you sitting there,” Sam blurted, because something needed to fill the space. “I thought I’d lost you for good this time.” A bloom of o _ld times_ warmth sprung up in the center of his chest. Dean’s face softened. The crow’s feet by his eyes stood through a smudge of dried blood and they aged him another decade, but unlike over the last year, what reflected back was kind again. Warm and sincere. The little smirk he gave Sam echoed it.

“Hey, happy to be back.” It was soft and gracious. _It sounded like he_ _really meant it_ , but the window pulled his attention away again as he bothered the cut on his lip. “I just don’t wanna waste it,” he added, but that wasn’t for Sam. That trailing comment was for whatever or _whoever_ he was seeing in the mist.

_If he calls, we’ll go to him_ , Sam thought, and he almost said it. Damn near had to bite his tongue to keep it in. Dean wouldn’t like the implication that he was being obvious, and bringing it up again without a prompt felt more like rubbing salt in his wounds rather than Neosporin. If Cas came up naturally, they’d talk more about him. If he didn’t, Sam would let it go. Just like he always did. Whatever it took to keep that sick, thin expression off of Dean’s face. 

It’d been there a time or two before. It was the kind of lit-match simper that could turn into a wildfire of guilt. Something that would eat its way through his personality and leave him bones if no one was there to douse it. Sam saw him fighting it now. That nervous thumb flicking at his phone screen was Dean flirting with the strike plate.

“I know you won’t,” Sam said instead. “You’ve got some catching up to do, but you’ll get there. I’ve missed you. We both have.”

Dean’s eye bugged over again, and he shifted, uncomfortable in his seat. He turned the phone over in his palm, then tucked it back into his pocket. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat, threw a hand at the traffic. “Great. What the hell is this now? We’re never getting home.”

“Five o’clock traffic,” Sam shrugged.

“It’s seven-thirty, and there are, like, three hundred people in the whole town. What rush hour? Cattle crossing, you mean? Stalled corn truck, maybe. But, smells like the other shoe if you ask me.” He frowned, checked his watch and mumbled, “It’s way too dark for seven-thirty.”

“So your watch is off. It’s just traffic--or a coincidence.”

“Since when is anything ever a coincidence?”

“Oh, relax,” Sam scoffed. “I can see a feed truck up there, maybe it jackknifed and he’s just waiting for a tow. Not everything is a prelude to the apocalypse, Dean. We’re not that important, and life isn’t that shitty.”

Dean looked at him, lips crooked in a spreading smile. “Yeah? What show you been watching?” he asked.

A dirty, black Jetta in front of them honked. The driver leaned out of her car window and stretched to see above the traffic. She waved a hand and slumped back inside, a frustrated black figure against the dim yellow of her dash.

Dean flicked a finger toward the field. “Just go around.”

“What do you want me to do, off-road into the drainage ditch, or monster truck over the Jetta? There’s not a lot of shoulder.” The radio hummed white noise into the corners. “Maybe we should consider… getting a four-wheel drive—”

“Shut your filthy mouth,” Dean snapped. “How dare you? She’s belly-up under a defunct restaurant right now and you’re gonna talk about replacing her? Isn’t it bad enough the stupid, plastic Ford survived when she didn’t? Might as well douse me in gasoline and light me on fire.”

Sam held up hands and welcomed his brother’s scowl. It was always so amazing how quickly they fell right back into place. 

The Fiesta idled hard and the engine sputtered. Dean combed through the gauges, got that look again. “It’s fine,” Sam said, cutting him off at the pass.

“That ain’t fine, Sam. This car’s beggin’ to die.”

“It can die when we get to Urgent Care.”

“You might wanna let it know that.”

He stretched over the steering wheel and grazed his head on the ceiling. He could see a small billow of smoke curling out in front of them on the roadway. “It’s fine,” he mumbled again. “Everything’s fine.” 

“Okay, you keep sayin’ that.” Dean reached for the door.

“No,” Sam suddenly popped the door handle, and slid out “You _stay_.” 

A slap of mugginess hit him in the face and stopped him dead in some of the thick, farmland stink that followed. It was like stepping straight into a sauna built off the side of a water purification plant. Dean came up on the other side, not quite as quick, and made the same expression— _Fucking heatwave from the belly of Hell._ “Hey--no,” Sam said pointing to the seats. “You’re s’posed to stay.” 

“Ch-yeah. That ain’t happening.” Dean started for the knot of cars and Sam chased after.

“Dean, you’re supposed to be taking it easy. You just played real-life crash test dummy. You’ve got broken ribs and probably a concussion. Not to mention the Mar—”

“Relax, Dr. Quinn. I’ll have a spa day when I can get a cold beer and my ass in a nice recliner. There’s no relaxing in a 2015 Ford Fiesta with an engine that sounds like a necrotic lung. I’m just checking on whatever asshole up here’s got his thumb on pause.”

Sam chewed his cheeks. “That’s exactly what I was gonna do.”

“Yeah, no. I mean I’m gonna go check out the stalled _engine._ ”

Sam nodded, shrugged. “Yeah,” then watched a salty smile spread over his brother’s face.

“You were gonna… diagnose the truck?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, okay… I’ll just hang back then. Watch the master work.”

It was the big rig, of course. A ton of dried corn feed, dead in the water. Simple. _Easy_.

Sam poked at the engine, leering through the stretching shadows for anything that looked out of the ordinary, but cars were cars were cars to him. Always had been, despite Dean trying to teach him about them since Sam was old enough to hold a socket wrench. Thing was, not a lot of it ever stuck. Sam knew how to change the oil — _on the Impala_ —knew how to replace spark plugs, how to keep the fluids topped off, and the tires filled. But, anything short of that, and he just found a good shop to do the work. He had other things to do. Books called to him, maps, puzzles, computer code. Not mechanics. And, mostly, that was fine, because Dean was the opposite. Sam could explain an intricate storyline and watch his brother’s eyes glaze over every time. But, just the same, when Dean talked about overhauling an engine or making some new kind of ammo, he came alive. It didn’t mean either one of them were better or worse at the job, just that they had different fortes. And the complement between them was what worked. 

Still, it didn’t stop the one-upmanship from cropping. 

“I mean, I don’t see anything weird,” Sam mumbled around the butt of the flashlight. It felt redundant to say out loud because his brother already knew he was flying blind. But Dean was smugly staring up from the asphalt anyway, not helping. _Apparently waiting for the white flag._

Sam scaled the fender, poked at a bundle of wires he _hoped_ were unhooked. _No luck._ “Okay, I give. Got any ideas?” 

“Frayed wires?” Dean asked on cue. He stole a quick glance at the driver, smiled as he babied a hand over his ribs.

“No--there’s a, uh, bundle of…” Sam glanced down, got a head shake for that. “No frayed wires...”

“Loose cables, Sammy? Busted lines? Bird’s nest? Dead cat stuck in a rotary? _Anything_ weird?”

“I thought you two were mechanics,” the driver frowned. A middle-aged man in a cap who looked like he needed a shower.

Dean cleared his throat. “Well, I am. But ya gotta throw the tall one a bone once in a while, right? He never gets to play.”

Sam glared down, the flashlight swinging wide and blinding Dean as he did. “Aside from the junk all over the engine block, everything looks fine.”

“Junk? Junk like what?”

“Soot, or grease. Oil, maybe.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to do pre-trip checks?” Dean asked the driver.

“I did! I looked it over this morning. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. She ain’t new, but she’s in decent condition.”

Sam dragged a line through the slime and rolled it between his fingers. Thick, gritty, and slick, it felt like castoff from a black hole. Out of place and out of time with anything he’d ever felt before. He squinted at it, watched the light from the little Coleman between his teeth practically swallow up and disappear.

“No oil leaks?”

“No. It was clean. Runnin’ fine. Soundin’ good.”

Sam hopped down and his bad knee argued. He held a hand out and let his brother wipe some of the tar off too. Dean frowned at it as he rolled it between his fingers just the same. Something strange crossed his face. A flutter of a moment before it was gone again. Then he mumbled, “This ain’t oil,” and the bravado in his voice was absent this time. Swallowed up like the light. 

“Listen, I got nothing to do with the shit on the engine. All I know is it just died on me halfway down the highway. No bells went off.”

It took Dean a moment, but he looked back up. Blinked and squinted at the talking trucker-cap. He seemed to chase a thought through the line of stopped cars. Hesitating at each set of humming, lemon headlights. “Like, died in flight?” he asked finally. “Battery failure?”

“Yeah. One minute, she’s puttin’ along, next minute my dash goes black and I’m tryna rack and pinion steer old Bertha outta the center line. No power. No nothin’.”

Sam’s attention wandered. The sun was slipping out of the sky faster than those headlights could compensate for. Street lamps beside the road flickered on, buzzed and hummed like fat, drunk fireflies. Further back, some restless kids crawled from their van and tumbled out onto the turf, screeching and laughing. Edgy parents hung out their windows, eyes on Sam, watching. Dean slapped Sam’s chest and snapped him back. 

“I need ya to boost me,” he said, flicking a finger to the rig.

“Why?”

“I’ve gotta look at it, and I ain’t jumping.”

“No, I mean, you’re not up for that.”

Dean made a face. “Just boost me, mom.”

“Fine.” It wasn’t worth the argument. “Your funeral.”

He motioned for Dean’s foot and caught the tread of his boot center palm as Dean hopped onto the fender. Sam levied him, and his shoulder screamed under his brother’s weight. “I want a beer wreath for my casket,” Dean joked, voice strained. He snagged the lip of the hood smoother than Sam expected and pulled himself to it with a long, wiry groan.

“You good?” 

“Yeah—”

“You don’t sound good.”

Dean wobbled, and Sam touched his back to get him steady, caught a sample of what hiding a bruised kidney can do instead, and Dean nearly slipped off the mount with a yelp. Sam scrambled, took the brunt of his brother’s weight in his bad shoulder to keep him up, strained. “You gotta tell me this shit!” he spat, hauling him back up. 

Dean slapped the truck, grabbed the edge. “It all hurts! Where you want me to start? Just Assume I fucking broke it!”

“Then maybe stay off the damn truck!”

Dean steadied himself again, weight lifting off Sam, and silence burning holes through the stink. 

Nerves were high, and the last thing they needed in the world was a fight, but the truth was, they were both running on fumes. Even though Sam hadn’t taken a swan dive out the front windshield like his brother had, he had ping-ponged around the inside more than a couple times before it was all said and done, and he desperately needed a break too. Sleep. _Food for God’s sak_ e--or a whole new year to restart. Not this… 

But, Dean _was_ trying to help. _Genuinely_. And Sam knew he already felt so damn out of place, they were barely in the same room, so getting mad was only gonna end up being another hurdle. 

He took a cool breath and started again. “You good now?”

“Yeah, good. Take a walk or somethin’.”

Sam let that one slide, for prosperity's sake. Rolled his burning shoulder instead, and listened to his collarbone pop. Mostly, he just stayed nearby. 

The driver leaned in close. Close enough for Sam to smell the beef jerky on his breath and see the sweat stains along his neckline. The dirt that was settled into the grooves of his neck. “What’s with him?” he asked pumping a finger as Dean stretched, winced, and pulled a cable loose with a huff.

Sam shuffled. “Uh, yeah. We were just in a car accident,” he said flatly. _Do you have eyes?_

“Oh, shit. Like a… like a bad accident?”

_Apparently no…_

“Face first out the windshield!” Dean boasted, odd dose of pride to it. 

“No shit?” The driver tipped his hat and ran eyes through Sam’s face like he was just seeing him for the first time. 

“Naw. It’d be pretty dumb for me to be crawling around your rig tryna fix it if that were true. I’d probably wanna be in the ER hooked up to a Demerol drip with some hot nurses asking me where it hurts.”

Sam shook his head. “Porn and real life are different,” he muttered.

“Not so different, Sammy.”

“Listen… ” The driver threaded his fingers at his face, wiped the sweat from his brow. “I’m sorry. I called my tow guy over an hour ago, an’ he said he was coming, but he still ain’t here. So I appreciate you helping. I don’t know what else to do—”

The car nearest them went dark, headlights flickering out and engine sputtering dead. The trucker stopped short. The wash of warm yellow that’d been bathing the rig evaporated and the shadows stretched thicker. “Whoa, hey,” Dean shouted. “Lights, Buddy! You wanna stay stuck?”

Sam ducked to look into the windshield and jogged a wrist like a turning key. “Can you turn your headlights back on?”

The man shook his head, hurried and rolled the window crank. “I—it just died!” he called back, slapping an open palm on the dash. “I didn’t do nothin’!”

Sam straightened and caught the edge of Dean’s frown with an air of panic. _Just a coincidence._

“Like _dead_ , dead?” Dean asked. “Try the key.”

“Yeah! Nothing!” The engine didn’t even try to turn over.

“Probably just a coincidence, Sammy…” There it was. And even though he was expecting it, Dean’s tone still stung.

A kiss of red in the atmosphere pulled Sam from the car, the angry driver, Dean. It was behind the jumping streetlight. The kids underneath had fallen quiet, floated together and clasped each other’s sticky, sweaty hands. Sam edged forward and something sharp burrowed through his gut. _Red. The light’s bleeding_. _It’s dying_ , he thought. 

“Look at it,” one of the kids said. Only, she wasn’t looking at the bleeding sky. She was looking at the lamp at the edge of the walk. Sam squinted, watched as a little mist of black danced in the hot glow of it like a superimposed halo. It condensed on the glass, beaded and traveled melted lines down the surface like filthy snow. The bulb crackled and popped with little wayward sparks of electricity. A white, spider-webbed crack etching slowly from the stem of the bulb and spreading through the dome.

Sam squinted, watched the black oil slip down the outside, build on the surface, compound, and suddenly Dean was next to him again, face drawn tight in the light. “Batteries,” he said roughly, hand on his ribs. “All the cars are going out. The rig’s is dry.” 

The headlights behind him dimmed and flickered before casting off completely, one at a time. The last hair of blood red sun cried through the black. It seared at the edge of the horizon, then snuffed out completely.

The bulb above them suddenly popped. Sam ducked, covered the kids, as glass rained down and sparks coughed from the connector. The lamppost fizzled and went black. The next followed suit. Popped, rained. _Another_. The procession of them like punctuation. The sound of glass like spilled pennies filled the street. Screams. Slamming car doors. And scuffling feet. The quiet was gone.

“I think it’s killing the light,” Sam leered, shards of glass tumbling from his hair.

"Killing it? The hell’s that mean _?_ ”

“I don’t know. Like, eating it?” 

“You mean lights--electricity? Batteries and bulbs?” Behind him, a Jeep’s bright high beams exploded and blacked out. Sam’s flashlight strained between them, flickered low and recovered. 

“Headlights, streetlights, flashlights--the sun! Any energy-- _all energy_.”

“You mean _Full Dark, No Stars_?” Dean asked, then straightened. He grabbed Sam’s arm. “Heavenly energy?” And his face was dark, but Sam didn’t need to read his expression to see it—to _know_ what he meant.

“I…”

“Sam!”

“I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Where is he?”

“I left him behind to perform the spell.”

“Left him _where?”_

“With, uh, Crowley. And… Rowena.”

Dean stuttered. “You wanna try that again? Please tell me you’re joking!” 

“He’s an angel, Dean. He can handle himself!”

“Then why _the fuck_ isn’t he answering his phone?”


	6. Sanguinarium

SIX

Sanguinarium

✣✣✣

Alice shouted after him, but it wasn’t enough to keep Cas in the bar. The screams outside were louder. He shouldered his way through the door, and the rusted bell struggled to chime goodbye.

The street was dark. A pervasive black had squelched the wild yellow sun and left the lights in the windows to fend for themselves. He nearly rolled an ankle where the curb bent to the street but didn’t actually stop until the smell brick-walled him. A suffocating mix of sulfur and death ran a dagger through his lungs and teased that ghost ache he’d been kneading from his breastbone all day. Rancid, curling smoke spilled from a fire up the street and it whipped the air stiff enough to choke an angel at the top of his game—which Castiel was not.

He bent and covered his mouth, blinked the sting from his eyes. Then it hit him. The smell he’d dismissed earlier as farm and fields was actually the same damn thing he’d been ignoring from Dean’s wake over the last year. The Book of the Damned hadn’t been playing coy after all. Castiel knew it wasn't, but despite logic, he’d been eager to believe Sam; _no one can tell me what that bad is. How can we be afraid of it if the Mark is so much worse?_

They were going to find out. And, if evil begets evil as the book had warned, then the ancient horror they’d just ripped from Dean’s arm hadn’t only swollen in retaliation, it’d popped. Now it was spilled into the streets, and there was no putting the cap back on.

They’d done this.

_I have._

“No,” he panted. A bitter taste crawled into his tongue and he snapped his teeth shut, wiped a venomous sting from his lips.

“This is not okay! None of this is okay!”

Castiel spun back in time to catch Alice. Wide-eyed, with a palm muffling her mouth, she crashed into him and he stumbled off the edge of the curb again. “Alice, what’re you—”

“What’s happening? What the hell is that sme—” She gagged and jogged over, braced herself on her knees, and dry-heaved into the street. Castiel steadied her, urged her up and watched her blonde hair fly wild with the pop of her head. 

“Alice, what are you doing out here? You should go back inside.”

“No, I—ca— I’m not going back there without you. I gotta stay with you!” She dug fingers into his suit and clung tight. Weak and wobbly, she was a total departure from the demure confidence she’d oozed in the bar before.

People brushed by. Some walking, some running. All of them dusty silhouettes in the bleed of light from storefront windows, dimmed headlights, and glowing cellphone faces. None of it did much more than speckle the darkness with a grainy fluorescent film, as if Lebanon, Kansas now only came in low-resolution black and white.

A passing car strangled and choked. Backfired like a gunshot before the bright flash of red brake lights flickered and died. “You don’t understand,” Cas said calmly. “You’ll be safer inside.” _Everyone will be safer inside._

“Safer? With Jerry? Did you even look at that guy before you jet? Dude looks like someone sucked the cream filling outta his Oreo. Dead eyes!” She waved a hand in front of her face. “I’ve seen this movie, and I’m not gonna hang back with the redshirts. You’re coherent. You look like you can hold a gun.”

“This isn’t a movie, Alice. This is a very bad, very real thing, and I can help, but I can’t help with you out here.” Another scream echoed through the street and Cas’ blood pressure eked up another notch “I need you to go back inside, where you’ll be safe.”

His grace suddenly bristled and he slapped a hand to his gut, surprised. Blinked and curled uneasy fingers into his shirt. A shadow moved in his periphery and he chased the sight of it. Alice didn’t seem to notice. She pulled at his sleeve, her voice cracked. “Yes, I want to go back,” she pleaded. “But I need you to come with me. We’ll lock the doors. Have a beer! Wait for—”

_Jesus, Cas. Tell me you can hear this. I’m prayin’._ Dean’s voice suddenly ripped through Cas’ head like a bolt of lightning. Crystal clear in the otherwise empty sea of static. _Listen, maybe you’re mad. Maybe you don’t wanna talk, and I—I don’t blame you for… hell… I’m tryin’ to call you, you understand? I need to talk to you. Answer your phone! Please._

Castiel’s stomach hit the dirt quicker than his breath jammed in his chest. He hadn’t heard one of Dean’s prayers since the Mark took residence in the bunker alongside him. Nothing ever got through after that. Every once in a while, Cas would catch a poor connection. Snap, crackle, and pop, like a dropped call. Hearing him now, clear, like he was standing two feet away, was connection restored, and it cranked Cas’ blood.

“—FEMA, or the Men in Black—” Alice faded back in, eyes lined with tears. Sticky desperation melded with the sweat on her face. She wrapped her hands in his clothing like he was the only thing keeping her on the ground. He quickly shrugged her off and clawed for his pockets. His suit, his pants, the hidden one inside— _Nothing…_

He looked up sick. Tossed an uneasy glance toward the sandwich board outside Wonderland. _I left it in the bar._ He snapped his eyes shut, and he wished yet another time that this whole prayer thing worked both ways. “I don’t have it, Dean.”

Alice twisted onto him again. Kept talking. Didn’t stop or notice his attention wandering. “—or, Mulder and Scully,” she begged. “I mean, I don’t know! This is not… normal. None of this is normal, and—”

“Alice—”

“What I’m saying is, people do better in groups! I’m just trying to keep us in groups!”

“Alice!” He clasped her shoulders, bent down to hang in her face. “I need my phone,” he said slowly. “It’s in the bar. By my coat.”

“You mean… you’re coming back?” 

“Yes, but, only to get my phone.” Still, she flooded with relief.

“Whatever as long as you’re—” She cut short, blinked and squelched her eyes like she was seeing stars. “Shit… What’re you doing?”

Cas frowned. “Doing?”

She unhinged fingers from his suit and backed up. “You-Your eyes. They’re… flickering.”

He felt it before she’d finished saying it. That uncomfortable roll of grace in his chest reared again. It prickled his skin and pulled unruly bolts through his nerves. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. More so than the dark, the heat. Than the rancid smell and screaming people. Castiel’s grace was wrong. He wasn’t tapping into it. It was moving outside of his control.

A kick of gravel to his right was his answer. A deep, black shadow pulled from the corners. White, vacant eyeballs rolled against a backdrop of black, standing out like light bulbs in an inescapable void. Lifeless and undulating, they caught a hit of Cas’ grace as it bubbled to the surface, and reflected back a wet, slimy shine. The creature stretched tall, towered above him as it crooked a heavy head on a spindly neck, odd and disjointed, like a bowling ball on a wet noodle.

The smell of rot on the breeze amplified in its wake. It growled, low and guttural. The midnight trill shot straight through Castiel’s bones and back out the other side.

“Oh, fuck,” Alice whispered, and, as it happened, she’d managed to summarize Castiel’s thoughts too. She tripped up the curb as he drew his blade. The hilt felt heavy in his hand. He couldn’t take his eyes away. The shadow pulled him. Ghostly whispers in the back of his mind.

“Go, Alice,” he said. His voice was rough. Tight and smothered.

She tugged at his sleeve. “Cas…”

Another attempt to persuade him poised at the end of her tongue was suddenly lost as Cas short-circuited again, and this time he lit heavenly hot. His grace lifted out of him and his wings spread. The street went daylight bright and he curled over from the sudden pain of it. He wasn’t doing it—he had no control. His body felt like it was being ripped apart.

The creature’s head fell low as thick, ropey lips pulled back to bare a row of jagged teeth, the light around it offset by the sucking void of its cracked, scaly skin. It growled deep, and Castiel’s temples screamed. He squeezed hands to his head and lost his feet. His knees hit cement as he struggled to find words.

“What are you?” he managed. It came out a lot more desperate than he’d intended. The creature only purred back. A string of syrupy black drool dripped from its mouth and seared a deep mark into the skin on his hand. The back of his neck. Down his cheek. He gritted back a yelp and struggled to break away, but it caught him, grabbed him with a curl of long-fingered claws. It dragged him forward. Ripped bloody lines through his clothes and into his skin, then tossed him to the concrete again like a cat playing with a mouse.

Castiel’s grace surged, and he managed to work a tap into it. He caught the creature’s foot as it stepped onto him, and held it off. He struggled. Felt the strain in his fingers, wrists, arms. He was slipping.

_Powerless._

“What do you want?” he begged.

It leaned over him, those vacant eyes constantly turning as it smiled. “The light,” it hissed.

Castiel lost his grip and the foot came down hard, cracked his ribs, and stole what was left of his breath.

Alice ran.


	7. The Red and the Black

SEVEN

The Red and the Black

✣✣✣

The phone line warbled. _Once, twice—_ “You’ve reached 913-285—” The battery warning beeped, and Dean smashed the off button again. He didn’t have to see Sam’s face to know he was getting _The Look; t_ he _You’re ridiculous, Dean. You’re wasting valuable resources by overreacting. There’re more important things to think about right now than Cas, and how much he may or may not need your help._ And, yeah, okay, maybe Dean was projecting, but he couldn’t leave things like they were. Not after everything. The truth was, Dean had been tamping everything down, and it was starting to feel like he could put Old Faithful out of business. Maybe it was the heat or the smell, the smothering dark or his throbbing head, but he felt his patience go.

“You know what? What the fuck? Cas ain’t a tool,” he spat. “He’s family! We got a lot of shit to talk about if you’re gonna start using family like you use everyone—”

“I never used him, Dean! He never did anything he didn’t want to do! Never once did I force him to do any of the shit we had to do to save you!”

Dean scoffed, slammed a thumb into the call button again. “There's a difference, you know? Between him an’ us. Wanting to help for an angel ain’t a ‘choice,’ it’s an alignment!”

Sam shrunk back. “It’s not on me if you don’t wanna give the guy any credit.” He pointed a finger and it dug a hole. “And it’s not on him that you’ve got unaddressed issues.”

Dean’s thoughts ran out on him. Sam would’ve been hard-up to find something to slap him across the face with harder than that first little comment had, but he’d found it; _Dean and his unaddressed Cas shit._ But, _fuck it._ He was already transparent as a sheet of glass, apparently. “Unaddressed’s the only kinda shit we do,” he said, and Sam’s eyes danced away.

There it was; Sam didn’t want to talk about it either, except that he sure as hell didn't seem to be leaving it alone much. Earlier with his ‘ _we’ve both missed you’_ comment, and now this? Dean supposed Sam only meant it to be ammo. He would just keep dangling it at the end of his _line of shame_ from now until permanent stage exit. Every time an argument got away from him, Dean would get slapped with a “ _Sure, but I know you’ve got a gay thing for Cas._ ”

He bristled. The two of them were yelling, and even if Sam hadn’t bit back with a pair of whetstoned fangs, the huddled masses behind them would’ve eventually shut it down; cue the crying kid. It was one of the little ones from under the streetlamp. She had glass in her hair and a little cut down her cheek. Dean could see it weeping in the flashlight halo. She was just standing there, to Sam’s flank, looking at the two of them with wet eyes and a mouth shaped like an egg. She was begging for her mom, but for whatever damn reason, the woman wouldn’t get out of the car. She was staring down at her lap instead, breathing and counting the beats. Dean hadn’t ever identified more with a little girl than he did in that moment. It felt like everyone everywhere was all on their own. People all around, but no one to help. His mouth was sour and it wasn’t from the smell.

Suddenly, he realized the call had stuck. The choking warble had stopped, and it was all rubbed fabric and raspy breath against the receiver. He shoved it to his ear and turned his back on Sam as stress carved his tone sharp. “Cas? Where the hell are you?”

“No.” A woman gasped on the other end. She coughed, sputtered and spit through the static, before finding her breath again. “No—Cas.”

“Wha— Who is this?” Dean spun back around, grabbed his brother’s eyes.

“Thur— and Wa—” The static trilled. “Wonderl-nd B—!”

Dean strained. “What? Where? Are you with him?”

“He’s—oing to di—”

“I can’t fucking hear yo— Is he in trouble?”

“Yes y— f-ckin— moron!” The line went dead as Dean’s phone powered off. Out of battery. Dead in the water. _Fuck!_ He hauled back and chucked it down the street. Listened to it grind over the pavement and shatter. Sam caught his shoulder and Dean shrugged him off.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Cas is in trouble.”

“Where?”

Dean shook his head, ran fingers through his hair as anxiety balled up in his chest like uncooked pizza dough. _Fucking_ _Wonderland, apparently. Only, she sure as shit wasn't talking classic lit. Yeah, we all went headfirst down the rabbit hole, sweetheart. I don’t know what that’s gonna tell me—_ The answer hit him mid-rant, and he was running before he’d even realized it. Ribs shifting, knee cracking; the whole nine. He sure as hell wasn’t as young as he used to be, and his body was twice as old as that.

“Whoa, hang on! Dean!” _Where are you going? Tell me what’s happening? What about these people?_

“Wonderland Bar!” Dean yelled back, and Sam could figure the rest out on his own. With a chest full of glass and a kidney like a beat sack of cats, there wasn’t much energy left for talking, and he was going to need every bit he could muster just to get to point B.

He had both hands wrapped tight to the butt of his forty-five when the road snaked and a pool of settled fog took him with open arms. He stumbled to a stop, realized in that moment that a flashlight would’ve done him a whole helluva lot more good than the gun.

The dark was all caught up in the alleyway, stiff as cotton in the breezeless black. He coughed into the crook of his arm, as his heart did that little panic somersault it sometimes did when the walls started closing in. He glanced behind him, hoped to see Sam lobbing after, stringy brown hair all stuck to the sweat on his forehead. Whole face gleaming dramatically in the lonely flashlight beam, but, there was nothing. The street was darker than the inside of a closed box. 

His boot caught some gravel and it kicked into the distance. A disjointed cacophony of sound lumbered its way back. Beside him, what was left of the light hissed at the side of a looming, black building; marked it like a chalk outline. It had boarded windows and a pile of discarded junk near the alley. Ahead of him, and rusted to the side of the road, the boxy outline of a car. Parked and forgotten a dozen years before. The building creaked and groaned, ominously quiet. 

Everything in Dean went queasy.

 _Only one way to go,_ he told himself, trying to get his feet moving again. Forward would get him there— _to Cas_ —but, he was starting to realize that removing a primary sense from a person, could flounder them through the most familiar of places. Dean knew Lebanon like the back of his hand, but Lebanon in the dark was a whole different city. He shut his eyes and did his best to conjure a bird’s-eye image of the city map.

He was on South Railway, he knew that. He pictured it, a tiny little road down at the bottom of the map. The little side street that snaked off of Highway 150 at an odd angle, and cut like a knife through two blocks of dilapidated warehousing and storage units. Thing was, Railway let out right beside the Post Office. And beside the Post Office was that side street with the goddamn pothole no one would ever pay to fill. Damn thing had knocked his alignment out once when he’d tore through it a little too hot after a night of too much drinking and not enough sleep. _It comes straight out at Pine and Pine’s a skip to Thurston,_ he remembered. _Auto Parts on the corner, Jeb’s Fishing Supplies next to that, and bar is to the left and down the street right before Waters._ And that sounded a lot like the stuttered static from his phone call. _Thurston and Waters._

His eyes shot open, and for a moment, the lack of difference shocked him stiff. _So, what’re you waiting for?_ A drip of sweat took a tumble off his brow as he scanned the skeleton buildings, and shuffled a foot out. His hands loped in front of him like he was doing a bad impression of a blind guy, and he stepped tentatively, first one foot, then another. His boot grit over the gravel, crunched and squirmed. _Okay, so... go forwa—_ The road suddenly stooped into a pothole, and out from under him. He tripped. Kicked some scrap wood as he caught himself, and the sound it made as it cracked into the car frame damn near stopped his heart, not to mention prematurely set off his gun.

“The hell with this!” he spat. “I need a flashlight, or some fucking high beams.”

He groped hands down his pockets, hoping he’d somehow missed a stowed mini LED in some tiny half-remembered corner of his Levis, but he didn’t have anything on him except the goddamn gun and a used book of matches; whatever was left after his last-ditch Death summoning spell that’d ended up spiraling out of control on him. _Big surprise there. No one coulda seen that getting outta hand._ He shook his head, forced himself back into the moment. “Come on, Dean!” he grunted between grit teeth. “You don’t have time to dick around! Figure it out!”

He pulled the matches and felt an oily thumb along the torn nubs. Only two still intact. “Well… fuck. That ain’t gonna get me there.” He chewed his lip, thought of the wood he’d kicked, and an idea ran up his spine in shivers. “But, maybe I can do one better…”

He stowed the gun, tore a match, and lit it. Yellow licked the black away as the fire crackled and hissed in his hand. Jewels of light hung in the atmosphere, all tangled into the cotton candy mist. He gasped and the flame danced with the pull of his breath. He popped the rest of the matchbook between his teeth and cupped a hand behind the _precious fucking flame._ He couldn’t afford to waste it. And he had little time. He scanned the roadside. Snagged a piece of cast-off wood from an old pallet, and shoved it under his arm, dodged over to the car.

A long dead 1991 Saturn SL that used to be silver, but now slanted more toward rust-red. He pried open the gas tank, and the hinges screamed as the flame ate down the match neck and bit his fingers. He shook it out. The immediateness of the darkness was suffocating. The moment of light had felt like an unhealthy dose of hope, and in its sudden absence, a brimming terror licked at his heels again. It was compounding. He felt it in his unsteady fingers and sweat-washed skin. Surrounded.

He took a breath. Closed his eyes and clenched fists, steadied his hands and racing mind, then worked the gas cap off. The unmistakable smell of gasoline wafted up, and there was a dangerous tingle of hope in that too.

“Come on, baby,” he muttered. “Big money, no whammy…” He scooped a couple rocks from the road and dropped them in, listened to the determinate liquid _glunk_ as they hit the plastic bottom. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” 

His adrenaline surged as he shrugged off his over shirt and ripped a long strip from it, threaded it through the nozzle, and shoved it down. He pulled it back up, stinking of gasoline, and absolutely saturated. Wrung it, and wedged the wood scrap between his thighs. He wrapped and tied the unleaded rag to the tip as his heart beat a symphony in his ears. _One match left_ , he reminded himself, as if he needed the added pressure. He plucked it, and, with a silent prayer, struck it. Watched the street go up one more time in warm, fiery light. The flame took the fabric and ran wild, curling at the edges of the knot. The street went warm with the smile of torchlight. Dean breathed.

“Macgyver ain’t got nothin’ on me, baby.”

———

There was no stopping, not for Dean.

Not when breathing felt more like an icepick to the diaphragm than a necessary fact of life. Or, when the road in front of him threatened to dissolve in speckles as the pain in his torso reached a critical limit, and the proverbial _check engine_ light in his head dinged on. Sweat soaked him from brow to boxer-briefs, and chills bowled him harder than the stiff heat, but there was no stopping.

He’d finally hit Thurston and the deep black corners washed out in bright light. Emaciated cast shadows rolling from center street, blue light hanging surreal in the atmosphere like splotches of wet paint. Shapes in the shadows moving free from the dance of his torch. A sight which, if he’d let himself think about it, plucked a chord in his gut and really let the bats out.

But, there was certainly no stopping for Dean when it turned out that that dissonant electric hum he’d been following for the last five minutes had been Cas, hung up and bloody between something’s teeth. Heavenly fucking wings fully-cocked and no goddamn sense left in him to use ‘em. 

He was ragdolling. And Dean’s pain and— _yeah, fear—_ were all compiling, because all he wanted was for the world to slow down for one damn minute so he could make some sense out of it. But God had everything suspended by a string, and the bastard was ready with the scissors.

So, if Dean stopped, he’d lose everything. Because that light of Cas’ was flickering. He was going to go out. _Just like the goddamn streetlamp._

Dean ripped the gun from the small of his back and fired. Quick and seamless. Two headshots, steady hands— always steady when it fucking mattered. Chunks of the monster exploded off the top, black blood spraying like a Rorschach test. All over the street, all over Cas as he went down screaming, hitting the blacktop hard. The creature toppled backward, and Dean held his aim. Waited for it. Expected it to rise again, but instead watched in vain as his friend struggled to crawl away, feet dragging behind him, smooth as a back-broke horse. How easily Cas gave up and writhed onto his side. Bright red blood spewing from his lips as agony curled him into a ball. The street dipped dark again and the unclonable hum ceased as Cas’ grace went out. Then there was only the torch’s gentle glow left to lick the edges into the world.

Dean’s head swam as he struggled to keep up. From beach-bright to coffin-dark. He crumpled beside Cas gracelessly. The torch hit the street and spit sparks. “Hey—hey, hey,” he gasped. “Cas, I’m here. Hang on. Lemme see—” He tried to tug Cas over, but Cas writhed back onto his side. Dean stilled him instead and gently turned him flat.

_Jesus, Cas._

He was a mess of broken bones and blood. Mangled arm, right collarbone snapped in two. One side of the jutted pieces a good three inches out of his skin. His chest was misshapen, and if his button-up hadn’t been bunched and bloody, Dean suspected the concave shape would look a whole helluva lot like that _thing’s_ footprint. He’d been crushed. Only thing keeping him alive was his fucking grace, but that was a catch-22, because, Dean guessed, if Cas could use it, he would have already. “You gotta heal, man,” he said anyway.

Cas sputtered and choked as he tried to speak. Dean stopped him, shook his head, “Just breathe” he said softly, bending down and wiping a bead of blood away from his eye. He pulled Cas’ tie loose, and popped the first couple buttons on his shirt, and rolled Cas back onto his side, listened to him gag his airway clean. Angel or not, The guy was bankrupt. And if Dean had to take things slow, he would take them as slow as they needed to go. As long as everyone kept breathing. _As long as Cas stayed by his side_. “Yeah, okay. Breathe for me first, and we’ll talk when you’re good. Okay?” 

Cas gasped, shallow and short, temple dug into the asphalt. Air dragged through him like a hole in a plastic bag. And once his breathing had slowed, and his pain-wild eyes had settled into the seam of Dean’s pant leg, Dean tried again. “Talk to me,” he said, feather soft. “Why can’t you heal?”

Cas’ jaw wobbled, and Dean dipped closer, hung in his space, at the edge of his lips. “Burns,” Cas said, his voice a recycled whisper.

“Okay,” Dean nodded. “Okay. What burns?”

“It’s the black.” Dean’s skin crawled as a voice from behind him got his gun back into his hand flash boil quick. He had the barrel butted up against some girl’s temple, trigger half-cocked before he’d taken a moment to think about it. She jumped, hands up and eyes wide. Tear-streaked cheeks in the firelight.

Cas grabbed Dean’s ankle. “No,” he gurgled, but Dean didn’t move.

“You the one who called me?” It came out harsh. Seeping actuals: _Did you do this to him? Fucking speak now or I’ll put you down and not spend another goddamn second worrying about it._

“Yes, I called.”

“Who are you?”

She brushed hair nervously from her face. “A fucking bartender.”

“That’s your name?”

“Alice. My name is Alice.”

Dean squinted. “How’d you know to call me?”

Her gaze darted Cas’ way, then snapped back. “First number in his contacts,” she said. She dropped a knee and rescued the torch from the street, shined it over Cas, eyes skimming through his bloody mess. A sad smile tipped her lips. “Hey, sweetie,” she said before clearing her throat. There was something strange sitting in her face when she looked back up, shoulders bouncing. 

“The, uh, black,” she repeated. “That’s when he started screaming.”

That sounded a whole helluva lot like the streetlamp. The way the black had condensed to the glass right before the damn thing shattered. Dean dropped the gun and stopped again. Wiped a mess of it from Cas’ cheek, and watched as his eyes threw a grace grinding wheel spark. Dean blinked, frowned, looked at his palm, and waited for the pain. Like a bite of jalapeno, any minute the heat would kick in and he’d get a decent ride on the Scoville scale. But, it only felt oily. _The same shit Sam pulled off the engine_.

“This?” he asked. “It doesn’t hurt me. This is what burns?”

Cas confirmed it, breath huffing as he tried to nod, so Dean whipped out the tail of his shirt, and rubbed Cas’ face down. Watched as the splotchy skin left behind raised in bright pink welts. _Okay,_ he thought. _Okay, so it’s killing him inside out? And if I get it all off, he’ll get his angel mojo back up and be good again. He’ll heal. He’ll live._

Problem was, it wasn’t only his face, or hands. It was everywhere. He was soaked in it, and Dean’s t-shirt was a glass of water during a wildfire. Cas didn’t need a fucking rag, he needed a lake. A lot of water. Fast. “I gotta wash him off,” he said, thoughts spilling. “Cas, I’m gonna get you in some water. Relax. You’re gonna be just fine.”

“God, yes,” Alice begged. “Can we please go back to the fucking bar?”

“My kinda girl, huh? Whaddya say, Cas? Cold one on me when we hit the stools?” Cas’ eyes lulled. His breath went shallow as his fingers went limp. “Cas? Shit—”

Dean staggered to his feet. He scanned the shadow line, shapes in it were moving outside the torchlight. Slinking at the borderline. Tension pulsed the air in quick heartbeat bursts. “Okay… Stay with him,” he decided quickly.

“What?”

“Stay with him! Do not leave his fucking side.” Dean plopped the forty-five in Alice’s hand, forced her fingers around the grip. “Do you know how to use this?”

“Wait, what are you doing? No—hang on!”

“I need to go get something to carry him in. A blanket, or tarp, whatever I can find. Anything that’d make a decent litter. You got something like that in your backroom?”

“I don’t understand—Why can’t we carry him now?”

“Listen,” Dean said, squaring. “I was booted out a windshield about two hours ago. I’m running on adrenaline and guilt, you get me? I can’t hoist a buck eighty down the block, and even if I could, it’d probably kill him. He’s being held together with spirit gum right now.”

Her eyes darted through his face. “You serious?”

“Like a heart attack, Sweetheart.”

Cas’ grace flickered again, brighter this time. A roll like the Aurora Borealis in grim light that pulled Dean’s attention like a slap. The flash cut through the dark and hit the brick buildings along the street in an achy pulse before washing out again. Dean froze, looked down and expected to see Cas get up—be suddenly fine again—but nothing had changed. 

Alice grabbed him, yanked his attention back. “Yeah, honey, sorry to hear it, but I don’t think you’ve got enough time to play wildlife survival medic because that’s what he did last time!”

“Last time when?”

Cas groaned, and writhed. Went rigid with a violent, unchecked shiver just as a guttural growl trickled up the street. White eyes suddenly speckled the darkness. Filled the shadow-wall like grapes in set jello. The dead mound of monster at their feet shifted. Dean choked, took a step back. 

“Oh, shi--Last time that!” she yelped.

“Son of a bitch.” He stooped for Cas quick. “Change of plans,” he said. “How’s a nice brisk walk sound?” but Cas wasn’t there anymore. His eyes were floating, the life spark in the deep blue was buried. Dean slapped him. “Hey, hey, hey—No you don’t! Wake up!”

Another spark of grace fritzed out of him as an answer, and a new shadow peeled from the dark. White eyes rolling haggard like a radioactive nightlight. 

“Oh, fuck! Dean--” Alice tugged Dean’s arm, and he shoved her off. He slapped Cas again.

“Cas! You gotta wake up—”

Alice growled. “Pick his ass up right now, or we’re all gonna die!”

Dean grit his teeth, gripped a handful of Cas’ shirt and tried to heave him over a shoulder, but his ribs weren’t having it--his _body wasn’t_. He tried a second time as the shadow loomed closer, and groaned through it. Got Cas halfway propped this time, but couldn’t convince his knees to lift them both, and they both went back onto the street. He scrambled up again, pulled Cas sitting. “I need you to be a fucking angel for a minute, and get on your own goddamn feet!” he screamed. 

Cas didn’t lift eyes to meet. Blood and drool strung from his lips. There was hardly anything left in him, Dean could see it. _Hell,_ he could _feel it_. Cas was slipping away right in front of his eyes. And Dean was just sitting there watching it happen like the helpless asshole he was. 

A tear curled down Cas’ cheek, and Dean chased it with his thumb before thinking. His ears were suddenly ringing with bells he couldn’t begin to know how to answer. He didn’t touch Cas— _not like this_ —but he’d gone ahead and stumbled through the old tapeline anyway because maybe this was the end anyway. Something sparked in the center of his chest, warm. He cupped Cas’ face, both sides, and butted their foreheads together. Got quiet. “Cas, I know you’re hurtin’,” he whispered. Deep. Intimate. “But I can’t carry you, and I ain’t leavin’ you behind either. You got two choices right now. You can either get on your feet and walk with me, or you can make a phone call to Sam and explain to him why he’s gonna have to bury us both. Understand?” He wiped the drool from Cas’ mouth with the back of a hand, searched desperately for eye contact, didn’t get any. 

“You’re wasting time trying to reason with a dead guy,” Alice culled. 

“He’s not dead,” Dean hissed.

“He’s gonna be if you don’t hurry up.”

“Fine. You wanna go? Go. Leave me the phone, and go back to the bar. Lock the doors.”

“Are you insane?”

“It ain’t up to me. It’s up to him.”

“He’s not even conscious!”

“Naw,” Dean drawled. “He’s there. He’s just trying to give up.” Behind Dean, the creatures pulled to the edge of the light with long, tenuous growls, stalled out for some reason and etching the pavement. Dean knew where they were without looking because, thing was, Cas was watching them. His eye’s had swum over-- _just a slight flit to the left--_ past Dean’s, head not a moment before. And now there was grace simmering deep down in the center of his pupil again.He was still there. He was listening. 

Dean palmed his head straight, held him solid. “I see you,” he said, calling the bluff. “You think you can wait me out, but my stubborn goes bone deep, buddy. You know I ain’t leavin’.”

Cas’ eyes doll-weighted and snapped up, met Dean like a lightning strike. He swallowed shaky. Jaw not moving enough to get his lips closed. “Then help me up,” he slurred.

Dean smiled, pat his cheek. “There it is,” he said. It was all saturated reluctance, but it was there. “I gotcha. Hang on.”

He twisted up on a knee and slung Cas’ arm around his shoulders, hauled him to his feet. Dean’s ribs screamed as he maneuvered on shaky legs, heaved them both up. Alice came around the other side to help. For a moment, Cas’ eyes rolled back in his head, and it looked like he was gonna go right back down like an accordion, but he pulled through. Determination and gusto weren’t even the half of it anymore, for either of them. This was about something else, and maybe Dean would take the time to consider just exactly what that was later. _If there was a later._

They moved sloppy through the street. Around them, the Darkness started to chirp. A new sound: disembodied crickets at the bottom of a well. A noise that hit bone and jigsawed brain stems. Cas took to it like a sick dog, tripped and sagged as his grace popped bright hot again. He screamed, and it was a sound sour enough to strip paint. 

The street lit up again. Dean shouldered his weight, narrowed his eyes against the brightness— _A whole different kind of blind._ A dreamy brush against Dean’s back took about three beats too long to realize it wasn’t only light that Cas was harboring in that grace, but wings too. _Pulled out and peacocking._

Dean mentally flung back into that barn from so many years ago. When he’d first laid eyes on them, and wondered if they were a pictographic manifestation or the real deal. He had his answer now, but there wasn’t enough time to make a dumb comment about it. Turned out, incorporeal heavenly shadow made a nice real-world breeze. They smelled like stardust and felt like an effortless breath. But, really, it turned out that Cas’ wings weren’t whole anymore. His were mutilated. Charred, scarred and broken. _Like the rest of him._

Dozens of white eyes illuminated in the cast blue. They cocked in stop-motion jumps. Rolling in tandem as they focused the long, thin line of macabre ire through Dean’s path. Watching.

_Jesus…_

Dean hit the sidewalk at the end of the street, and Cas finally gave out. His grace surged hard, then fizzled. There was no brace in his fall. It was complete power failure. Dean hit the pavement with him, and the shadows chattered. He scrambled to pull Cas back up. “No, no— _fuck_!”

Alice brushed past, torch gone, she’d probably lost it when Cas had gone phosphorescent. Dean couldn’t blame her. That was about the same time he’d lost his stomach. She hit the wood door and it rattled in its frame. She groped the knob, threw a shoulder into the wood, and, when it didn’t budge, a fist. “Jerry, you sonofabitch!” she screamed. “Unlock the fucking door!”

The shadows’ chatter was deafening. The darkness at the storefront, unnerving. The torch was halfway down the street now, and it made Dean feel naked. They were all exposed. In a land where darkness reigned, the firelight had been the only barrier, and he realized it might’ve actually been keeping the creatures at bay. Protecting them in some way or another. Because now the eyes were moving. All of them coming quick. Heads cocking, claws tilling the pavement in lurid screeches.

The door popped open and Alice fell inside, a bell chiming happily as she did, and light pouring out to wash the street. A fat guy in a dirty trucker's cap stood at the threshold, red-faced and staggering. He looked down at her confused as she scrambled up, shoved him away with a frustrated snarl. “Fuck you!” she screamed, sweat spilling down her temples.

Dean could see her now. He could see everything. Her ghost white face. The blood on her hands and arms. Staining the front of her shirt. She’d been trying to get Cas out of the street a while, he realized. Probably a couple of times before Dean had gotten there.

She twisted back and hooked Cas under an arm as Dean crawled to his head and did the same. Together, they dragged him the rest of the way past the jamb, and she snapped the door shut. Popping the lock and throwing herself against it for good measure.

“Water,” Dean panted. He fought the speckle in his vision again. His chest was screaming so loud, he was sure he’d never be heard over it. “I need water.”

She stumbled to her feet again, crashed into a table, unsteady herself as exhaustion frayed coordination. “Kitchen has a sprayer,” she said, as she brushed past the fat red-faced man still staring dumbly back. She tossed chairs out of the way, cleared a path. They tipped, crashed on the floor. 

Cas slid like a dream for Dean along the cool wood, leaving a bloody trail at his heels. Then, once Dean had gotten him past the swinging double doors, he slid just as well on the smooth kitchen tile too.

“I need you to call Sam,” he said breathless. He threw the faucet on. The pipes sputtered air— _Fucking work—_ and then coughed water into the basin. “My brother— He’s in Cas’ contacts. Tell him where we are, and to get his ass here ASAP—” He pulled the sprayer and the hose caught on the stop—f _uck—_ He reeled it back, pulled again, slower. It unrolled this time. “—tell him to light a torch before he leaves.”

Dean’s voice pitched, cracked. He was losing it. He felt the tears. “Not a fucking flashlight or a lantern,” he said. “A torch. He’s gotta keep it on him at all costs. No questions asked. Would you do that for me? Please?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, and she didn’t give him one. The swinging kitchen door was enough. She was gone, out again, leaving Dean alone. _With Cas._ He pulled the trigger and a burst of cold water burped from the feed. It hit them both and sent shivers through Dean’s skin like wildfire. All at once the situation overwhelmed him. Tears welled and spilled hot. He fumbled the buttons on Cas’ shirt open, his fingers long past numb. He could finally see the extent of damage, all of it laying hidden underneath all that dirty fabric. In the light of the bar, Cas was an unrecognizable bruised and bloody cat toy. With deep gouges and torn flesh. Rashed skin. A gash through his abdomen so deep, Dean could see intestine.

He grabbed a rag—and it smelled a little too much like bleach not to be soaked in it—but he started scrubbing anyway. Fuck chemical burn when Cas was already being smothered. He watched the water run dirty. Black and red soaking ruddy colors into the knees of his jeans.

Dean’s gut balled up. Threatened to never come down again. This was random access horror for every night’s sleep he’d get from now till death. He sobbed and didn’t try to muffle it. “Don’t you fucking die on me!” he begged. He worked at Cas’ belt, and this was not how he’d imagined it—fucking nothing like he’d imagined it. He slipped in the water, and buried his face in the crook of Cas’ neck, frustrated and totally undone. “I’m washing it!” he sobbed.

But Cas didn’t move.


	8. Synchrony

EIGHT

Synchrony

✣✣✣

It was the sunlight. Those high-seated industrial beams. _No. No, no, no._

A scream twisted up in the bottom of Castiel’s throat as Crowley stepped toward him, a curious squint in his eye and sweat beading his temples. The blood on his lip was fresh and shining. “Oh,” he said, the syllable drawing out long. He pulled at his suit. Straightened his tie. Thumbed the swollen bulb of his lip and smeared the crimson thin. “I know what it looks like, but it wasn’t me.”

Cas’ breath hitched, hands shivering as the numbness drained and went clammy. He squeezed his eyes shut. Thoughts came on hazy. Strangled and stuck in the cobwebs— _No, no… this is not happening… What’s happening—_ Then the hilt caught his eye. A dab of that bright sun off the reflective gold belly lying on his lapel. Blood stained his gray suit black. Tears burned his face, ached in his jaw. Hands bloody to the wrists— _like I’ve just been in someone’s chest—_

“Happy to get that for you, actually.” Crowley sauntered closer, and Castiel watched. Didn't move as Crowley bent for the blade, plucked it from the top of him, and eyed the blood-red stain. “Where did we get this?” he frowned, eyes flicking back again, going narrow.

_I don’t know—No, I do—_

Crowley suddenly combed consideration over Cas’ body, then slowly turned the blade on him. “And just what exactly are you now?” he hummed.

Panic spread through Castiel’s chest like flame.

 

He gasped and the air bit like fire ants down his throat, kicked and sputtered his lungs alive again. He writhed onto his side, but a weight on top of him-- _blurry hands he didn’t recognize--_ pushed him flat. “Wait!” he gasped, head dark and spinning. His voice came out a balled paper bag; bone dry and totally used up. He fought the hands off. Pushed them away. Scrambled to an elbow again in a desperate attempt to escape. A gritty noise corkscrewed out of him as pain buckled his stomach in two, but those heavy hands came back. Pressed him down. “Please wait—” he begged, blind. The room hissed with white noise. Everything dark and gravy-thick. “I have to go to Dean—” and the hands cradled his face in response. He stole the opportunity— _guard, down_ —and slipped a decent right hook past, made contact. The foreign weight toppled off, and the yelp it dredged up came to him hazy and slow. 

He crawled again. It felt like someone had a finger on his mental dimmer switch, and they were toying with the knob. He hit a wall, and couldn’t make any sense out of it with thoughts frayed with a pain howling so loud, all attempts to slip past it were a random access memory dump. The hands came back again, pulled at him, and Castiel slid down on his ass, back flat to the wall that trapped him. He tried to squirm free, but the entity pinned him there. Grabbed his face, straightened him forward. _Castiel, stop!_

Cas froze, grabbed it back. Got a handful of sopping wet cotton.A stir of grace suddenly popped under his skin, rallying and alive again. It burst through his chest like a million spilled needles. Took hold in his muscles, his broken bones. It worked his wounds with a stale effort and a five-second delay. It wasn’t enough to fill him, but enough to make some noise, and relief finally chugged through his head like a prick of IV opiates. 

He slumped back against a wall, mentally slid into the little, lemon yellow kitchen with a long, easy sigh. No skeletal beams or sunlight, rogue hands or disembodied weight. Just the hum of the old fluorescent fixtures, water-beaded tiles, and Dean— _right in his face_ , with cheeks so flushed, his freckles looked iridescent. 

Castiel’s breath caught hard. 

“Focus--Cas, it’s just me. I’m not tryna hurt you, I’m tryna get you to heal,” Dean said, voice bleached out and completely baseless. His eyes were wild to match. He had a red smear under his nose where he’d taken Cas’ hit, and puffy eyes, teared up fresh. He suddenly slipped an unguarded smile, pulled Cas’ shirt open, and groomed hands down his stomach, no boundaries. “Oh, shit, you are— You’re healing!” 

Every piece of Cas’ subconscious screamed. Dean never touched him— _certainly never touched him like this_ , and it was too many round puzzle pieces to make a picture. In an instant, Cas was sure it was another dream. Dean had a knife on him, and it was going to go in between Cas' ribs with a sick, wet-meat hiss. 

Castiel snatched him, jerked Dean’s hands away. Held him off in a vice grip. Dean’s smile dropped, and as he looked up surprised, a strange feeling clotted up in Cas’ chest. There was something in his face that felt surreal at its best, and about twelve months overdue. 

_That green…_

Dean’s eyes churned the light. Dragged the yellow from the kitchen walls and mulled it: It mimicked sunshine on a hot summer day. The kind of color that ate straight through Cas’ gut and right out the other side. What it was, was the shade of someone he hadn’t seen in a very long time. Last time Cas had been here, last time he’d looked at those eyes, there’d been no sunshine in them. Only hate had stared back. He jerked Dean’s right arm out, fingers pressing the flesh white as he turned it over and searched. _Freckles. Water. Dried blood, dirt, scratches, hair_ — but, no Mark. 

“It—it’s gone,” Dean affirmed. “I’m… me again. You got it off, remember?”

 _Dean—_ Everything came back to Castiel in a landslide. _The spell. The black. Alice, and the creatures…_ Dean showing up out of nowhere in what felt more like a hallucination than reality. Then everything that’d happened after that: The way he’d stayed. The way he’d parked himself next to Cas refusing to move, leave. _Save himself_.

Cas’ eyes bumped up again, and he and Dean collided. The intensity of it snapped Dean’s mouth shut, and whatever else he was going to say fizzled out. Everything was suddenly glass: clear and sharp and so easily broken, just the thought of it cut. _This is the part where you kiss him,_ Cas realized as his own face went hot. _This is the part where it all goes to hell. All in or all out, no more fence._ Because maybe Dean shared the sentiment after all. Maybe Alice—everything she’d said—was right. Cas wasn’t the best at reading body language, but Dean’s attention was settled on his lips, and he was at least coherent enough to remember what she’d said about that:

_It’s all in that look, Cas. Does he set up camp at that beautiful fucking mouth of yours, or does he skim it and move on?_

_He’s camping, Alice…_

_Then, foot the bill._

The idea congealed like a lump of dead butterflies in his gut. With Alice and her risky advice bouncing around his brain, too many things could go wrong, but, this one thing— _this one fucking thing_ —could go so very, very right. And with Dean planted in Cas’ lap, the two of them face to face and legs straddling— Dean apparently just starting to realize it too, but stuck just the same— there was hardly a better time. 

Castiel must’ve been making a face, because Dean’s eyes stuttered away, swam back unsure. He tried to take an arm back, and when Cas didn’t release it, a nervous chuckle escaped him instead. “Okay,” he said. “We just gonna stay like this? Or at least… warn me if you’re gonna start swingin’ again--” 

Cas lobbed forward, snagged him in a messy kiss. He hit too hard. Too messy. Metallic taste of blood still seasoning his mouth, and skin fevery hot. But, it culled a noise from the base of Dean’s throat anyway; a surprised, erratic huff, somehow both baseless and so fucking thick a knife couldn’t have sawed its way through.

Dean kissed back. He jerked a wrist from Cas’ grip and buried needy fingers into the hinge of Cas’ jaw instead. Cas’ head went light. His fingers grew a mind of their own, wandering in reply, jumping the pinch of his wrists for the swell of his ribs instead, down the curve of his waist to flirt with the hem of his jeans. 

It took a minute to bloom in Castiel’s head, but the meaning behind it hit square in his chest and drove his heart into his ears. He huffed, swept the curve of Dean’s neck and tasted him. Dean’s skin was fiery hot. His smell somehow sweet. A dangerous decadence in his flavor that quelled the sour around them. 

“Okay… wait—” Dean pulled away, and Cas tried to chase him, but that two-timing hand on his jaw that’d helped him moments before, hindered him now as Dean held him off. “No, pump the brakes, cowboy. You don’t wanna… You don’t wanna do that…” 

“Yes, I do.” 

Dean smiled, swallowed hard, forehead butting into Cas’ as his head tilted down, but he didn’t move away. “Maybe you think you do, but you don’t.” Their eyes met, and the vulnerability in Dean’s expression burned. “You went through a helluva thing just now, and you’re all over the map on my here… You’re confused.”

He tried to move off, but Cas stopped him. “I understand exactly what I just did; I kissed you.” Dean watched him, lips parted as he grabbed another chaste glance at Cas’ mouth. “And you kissed me back.”

 _Called out._ Dean stumbled over it, jaw wobbling. “Yeah, but—“ Cas nosed him and Dean huffed again, chewed the fleeting touch. Their mouths brushed as Cas curled fingers in Dean’s wet shirt. Dean suddenly snapped back, “No, I can’t—“ He crawled off, back into the tile. 

“Why?”

“Because I can't— We can’t just— “

 _Not everything was glass,_ Cas realized. _Just Dean._ It turned out, Alice was right again. Dean’s reaction told him everything he needed to know; he was crumbling. The weight of his own conscience had bore him brittle, and who Cas had in front of him now, was far from whole. He was fractured in a million places, and everyone was always handing him glue when what he needed was melted and reshaped.

 _What was that she’d said about emotional credit?_ Cas puffed. Dean didn’t have it. That meant he needed to _foot the bill_ , and why not? He’d already jumped the fence.

“I don’t think you understand,” Cas begged. “I need you, Dean. I’ve always needed you.” Cas felt the old, regurgitated phrase pool heat under Dean’s chin, and he trailed after it, fingers over his collar. If he never got Dean like this again, he wanted to remember it. His heat. His smell. His taste. Cas held him tight. Spoke against him, trying to recreate whatever intimacy they'd had outside in the street. If Cas had felt it, then he knew Dean had too. It'd been powerful enough to get Dean to stay, and to get Cas moving.

“Please, give me a chance. I won’t waste it, I swear I won’t.”

Dean breathed, shaky, and got caught somewhere between a sob and a smile. “Are you serious? The hell’s gotten into you?”

“You did.”

Dean stared wide-eyed. “You want me? Like, _want me?_ ”

“Yes. Are you offering?”

“Now? Like—we’re doing this—After everything I’ve done to you?”

“After everything you’ve done _for me?_ Yes, Dean. You heard me say I need you? I meant it! I don’t—I don’t think I can… ” He got lost, watched Dean blink back tears. "I just... Dean—I can't bury this again. I meant to. I really did. I tried to walk away…”

“Is that why your phone was off?”

Cas swallowed, nodded and watched it hit Dean hard. “But I couldn’t,” he said grabbing his hand. “I can’t.”

Dean suddenly snagged him in a timid kiss, and Cas leaned into it. Felt it in his toes as Dean melted and worked it heavy. "Fuck…” he muttered under his breath. “Don't walk away.” He pressed Cas into the wall, perked up on his knees and increased the angle. Cas stretched up with him, spine pulling long as Dean flirted a hint of tongue, and Cas opened for it. Begged for a taste. Salty and carnal is what he got. Another full hit of that shrouded decadence with a sweet hormonal chaser. Dean shook his head like a stiff hinge, palmed Cas’ face and whined. “Okay… this is… We can...”

In that moment, Cas was a lot of things, tired, cold, about three-fourths of a tank low on grace, but actually, he was hard. Dick already pulsing, and not a whole lot of anything keeping it under wraps, because at some point during the mad dash to save his life, Dean had apparently gotten Cas’ belt off and his pants undone. He whimpered, squirmed. Dean was lifted off his lap enough that maybe he didn’t realize the _situation_ , except Cas suspected he did, because there was something so damn naked in his face, and so damn raw in his touch.

He was spilling.

They both were.

Dean wrapped fingers in Cas’ hair and licked a hot line over his neck, finished with a light scrape of teeth. Cas skirted Dean’s ribs on the way through to his hips, and Dean winced. Cas noticed, found a reason and slipped back up. Under the hem of Dean’s shirt this time, up along his water-cooled torso, and didn’t stop till he found the swelling, and hot pooled blood under his skin. Dean winced again, sat back, dragged Cas’ hand away.

“You’re hurt," Cas said.

“No, I’m good actually.” Dean slid Cas’ hand down to his belt, kept going till he was grazing over the swelling beneath his jeans instead.

 _Oh, okay—uhm,_ Cas huffed. _This is all very good and unexpec— No, wait._ “Just—lemme heal you.” He pulled out of Dean’s grip and slid up his body again, jumpier this time. Only got part way before Dean shut him down again. Took his hand and trailed it back down. To his belt, down his fly, over his dick. Then held him there, eyes reading, watching. “I’m just fine.”

Cas suddenly understood. Dean was playing. It was a game. If anything, it took the tension out, but, Cas suspected it served another purpose too. The floor between them had been knocked away and everybody needed to figure out where to stand. Dean was feeling him out; sexual experience and whatnot. He probably already had his opinions, and Cas wouldn’t be surprised if he had a shoe or two in the celibate corner of suspicion.

So Cas took the challenge; _happily._

“Dean, my hand doesn’t have to be on your chest for my grace to work. I’m healing you, so pick your entry point. I’ll go either way.”

Dean stared at him, eyebrows up a moment before a smile spread. He was beautiful. Exhausted, and dirty, but somehow still so spunky. “Then lemme have it,” he relented. He came in for another kiss and Cas grabbed hold at his waist, let his grace free. This time, unlike any other, it was missing the delicate pine needle tingle on the back end that was so deeply associated with sharing a heal. It ripped out of him like a picked scab, and Cas realized he was playing with fire in a room full of gas. His grace was thin and all the warning lights were blinking. The world swayed darker, the kitchen threatened to disappear in speckles, and the floor went out. He hugged the wall but lost his balance as Dean bent to the sensation of a grace rush, arching his back and clawing fingers into Cas’ bare chest.

“Oh, God,” Dean panted and he sagged forward sloppy, fell down into Cas’ lap, and Cas toppled. Dean followed him with little contention all the way to the wet tile. Cas blinked hard, gasped as everything went fuzzy. “I’ll never get over that,” he crooned again, in Cas' ear. He pulled at Cas’ already undone waistband, and Cas felt his dick slip free. He curled for Dean’s hand involuntary-quick. Grazed his hard-on against Dean’s thigh and whimpered.

Cas fumbled for Dean’s belt, popped the button on his jeans and slipped inside, watched his face corrupt to the touch. He was hard, smooth, and wet with pre-come. He moved needy with Cas’ shaky fingers, bucking into his fist as he buried his face into the side of Cas’ neck. He worked his fist slow and Dean moaned with it. _Look at you, so damn pliable_ , he thought and he felt a rush of power in it.

Suddenly, the bell rang and the walls shook as the front door snapped shut. Dean jerked up, and the pillowy haze in his eyes thinned out. Sam’s muffled voice broke the sound of their heavy breathing, and Dean washed white.

Cas stopped. “What’s wrong?”

“Sam,” he said, face all caught up in that plastered worry again.

“You don’t want him to find…”

“No,” Dean looked down. “Wha—no. I mean, maybe not… like this…” He let Cas loose, shook his head. “He wasn’t with me, Cas. I left him behind. Outside.”

Cas waited, thought he was missing something, then realized Dean was asking him something— _Permission._ Dean was wedged between what they're doing, and what he needed to go do—I _don’t expect Dean to choose me over his brother—_

_Of course, you don’t, Fish._

“Go,” Cas relented immediately. “Check on him. Make sure he’s alright.”

Dean sighed, hopped up and tucked himself back together. He shuffled a moment before folding down to kiss Cas’ temple. “Thank you,” he whispered, and even though the sweetness was an afterthought, it still pinned Cas to the floor.

Dean slipped out, and Castiel was left staring at the ceiling. He tried to corral his thoughts in the old, water-stained tiles. A little black spider was tucked into the corner, so innocuous, it could’ve been a nail hole. Except, that was a ridiculous place to put a nail.

_Just trying to hide. It’s so difficult when you’re small. More difficult when you’re alone._

Water dripped from the sink onto the floor in fat plops. His heart beat anthems in his ears. Castiel wasn’t the spider anymore. He flushed hot and covered his face with both hands. A smile slipped.


	9. Dod Kalm

NINE

Dod Kalm

✣✣✣

Sanity was stringy, and Sam already felt about two yarns shy of a usable rope. It was why he practiced breathing exercises. Did yoga. Ate leafy greens and took long runs. _Healthy body healthy mind, and all that jazz_ —It kept the tether tight, all the strands cinched.

Except, the air here was thick, getting thicker. There was no room to breathe. But, as long as he had a job, everything was going to be just fine. All he had to do was keep moving, keep thinking, keep helping. _Keep counting._

Sam counted heads.

_Eighteen, nineteen, tw—_

“What’s happening?”

“What do we do?”

“—just, in the dark like this? This seems dangerous.”

“Being out there doesn’t? Go stand outside if you don’t like it!”

“I don’t want my kids to—”

 _—enty._ Sam held up hands. “It’s just temporary. Everyone, please—” He swung the little flashlight beam through the dank warehouse floor. Water damage and musty air. A pile of woodworking supplies strewn on a bench. “I know it’s not ideal, but it’s all we’ve got right now.”

A shuffle of feet broke the stagnancy. The flashlight flickered and the cell phone faces turned the dark room icy.

_The little girl with the glass cut cheek makes twenty-one._

Sam’s heart was in his ears, and as he shut the door, the hinges cried beside the children. 

Then, his phone rang, and it only seemed right to keep a count on that. Everything organized, categorized, and neat _: Everything’ll be fine. Keep it tight._

_Two rings. Three—get it outta your pocket, Sam—_

After that, it seemed more important to count battery life.

_Fourteen percent:_

“—What do you mean bring a torch?”

“He said a tor—h. Like, real fire. To keep the m—nsters away!”

Sam strained. “Is he okay? Can I talk to him?”

“No. He’s with C—s. I don’t know—he’s… he’s cr-ing.”

“Cas is crying?”

_Nine percent:_

“No…”

Sam’s stomach was stone. “Okay, I’m coming, Alice. I’m coming right now.”

_Five percent:_

_One low battery warning turns it to four…_

But, it was when counting bullets turned into counting eyes that things turned less fine. _A lot less fine._

“Step back! I don’t wanna have to shoot you but I will!” The forty-five was heavy in his hands. Nail gun pointed his direction and sweaty truck driver wielding wild eyes to pair.

“You ain’t just leavin’ us here!”

 _Grid’s out_ , Sam thought, _that’s not gonna work,_ but then a nail squelched through his left eye and his depth perception erased like a goddamn magic trick. It was a helluva way to be proven wrong, honestly.

_One bullet._

_Two._

A dribble of hot blood ripped a fresh line through the sweat on his cheek, then tears chased after it. That was the thing about eye injuries, wasn’t it? They only bled a lot if you were about to hemorrhage. No time to worry about that now.

 _I’ve only got one clip;_ That seemed more important. _One clip minus two rounds equals six._

The warehouse was quiet. People covering their ears, or covering their mouths. Eyes wide enough to scream.

“Put pressure on it,” he instructed, looking down at the driver. “I said I’ll be back, and I will.”

_Zero kills, one eye, six rounds left._

_One, two, three, four, five, six—_

He counted breaths. The street was dark. Torch fire licked the hairs from his arm.

_Just keep counting._

He counted breaths.

_You got this far, and everything’ll be fine if you just keep counting._

The shadows moved opposite the light. Stress played his strings with a straight razor. All the threads were popping loose. Frayed and torn.

He counted breaths…

The front door opened and yellow bled into the black. “Jesus Christ! Sam?”

_Count them, Sam.You’re gonna count them and everything’ll be fine._

“I need two!” he gasped, pushed past. Tried to look through the room, but the light was blinding. The turn of his eyes pulled stitches from his brain stem and more tears came. His hands were shaking. He couldn’t stop his hands from shaking.

Dean broke through the kitchen door—

_ONE_

_—_ and his face spoke volumes. Drawn up, tight, it’d transformed on sight. “What the hell happened to you?” He palmed Sam’s shoulders, and Sam clung to him. Blood drooled off his chin, soaked into Dean’s shirt.

_ONE_

“Hey, okay—Sam—”

“You’re one,” Sam said, buried in his brother’s shoulder. His voice was strangled up in his throat. Somebody had pulled it thin like hot taffy. The girl was there, _Alice_. The one with the phone. _The one with Cas’ phone._ Some man in the back, eyes buried in the wood grain.

“I’m one what?”

“You’re one!”

“Sit down for a minute, huh?”

“No, I need two!”

Dean grabbed his face. “Sammy—” His hands were wet. “Sit down.”

“I need two!”

“Listen’a me. Please sit down. You gotta nail in your eye—Do you know you gotta nail in your eye?”

Sam sobbed. “You’re one! Everything’ll be fine if I have two!”

Dean shook his head, eyes narrowed. “You need two what? I don’t understand. You’re not makin’ sense.”

 _Slow it down._ “Dean, you’re one,” Sam rasped, “but I need two.”

His brother frowned, mouth working silently along a thought. “You mean Cas?” he asked, then more definitively, “You mean Cas.” 

He tossed a chin over his shoulder. “Cas! I need you now!”

That name settled like gold in the center of Sam’s chest. “Two,” he huffed, as he dropped the fistfuls of Dean’s tee. _See? What did I say, Sam? Everything’s okay. There’s two. You’ve got two. All you had to do was count them. One. Two._

_All you had to do was keep counting._

Sam’s sanity was stringy, and judging by Dean’s expression, Dean knew it too.


	10. Gethsemane

TEN

Gethsemane

✣✣✣

_Nerves,_ Sam thought, teeth chattering and muscles balled tight. Sweat slicked his temples and wet his hair. The light in the room felt ultraviolet. It was sinking into his skin and turning his cells new colors. _Purple, blue, red… No, that’s not right._ Really, he realized, everything was slowing down again _._ The cold fluorescence was thumbing Thorazine into his veins, and he was coming down.

Cas ducked into view, pulled at Sam’s good eye, and squinted. His face was oddly drawn. Hollow cheekbones making new strides next to the bags under his eyes. His hair, matted and finger-combed, was dripping onto the collar of his stained, half-opened shirt. _Dean’s hands were wet…_ Cas had hold of Sam’s hand with his other, and for the life of him, Sam couldn’t remember who had grabbed whom. He clung to Cas anyway. The contact was grounding.

“You think people did this to him?” Cas asked, and his voice dragged slow. Sam couldn’t decide if it was him doing it, or Sam hearing him wrong.

“Yeah, I mean, I doubt those nightmare-walking motherfuckers are wielding DeWalt’s all the sudden.”

Dean sounded normal.

“And he’s not talking?”

“Well, he was talkin’. It’s sense he ain’t makin’.”

Sam blinked. His eye had finally swollen shut, and he was grateful to lose the feeling of his lid fluttering against the nail. Even if that made the building pressure feel like his whole eyeball was trying to make a great escape.

He tested his drug grade cottonmouth with a dry tongue _click_ and stole a glance his brother’s way. Dean had his arms crossed, face glued in a permanent grimace. Every time Cas made a move toward the nail, Dean balled up tighter. “People are worse than the monsters,” he added, eyes trained on Cas. “I’ll say it again.”

Cas frowned. “I’m not sure I can agree with you on that. Not for these monsters anyway.”

_The hell’s with the small talk?_

“Yeah, well, I guess I gotta give you that— You flirting with that damn thing, or you gonna take it out?”

“I’m afraid he’ll hemorrhage when I touch it. I think it’s in an artery.”

“But you’re healing him though?”

Cas’ mouth drew thin. A little twitch at the corners of his eyes. “Of course,” he said after a long pause. “I just— I think I need you to pull the nail while I do it.”

“Wha—I don’t wanna touch it. Are you kiddin’ me?”

“Dean, I need your help.”

“Okay, but, it’s in his _eye!_ "

“Yes, I noticed that. You kill things for a living, Dean. This is your line?”

“It’s pretty gross,” Alice agreed from somewhere to the rear. Sam couldn’t see her, but he felt her hanging close.

Cas licked nervously at his lips, sat back. “I understand, but, fortunately, it didn’t go in his chest or he might be dead right now. Everyone should be thankful.”

“But, what if it’s in his brain and that’s why he was babbling? Should I even be touching that?”

“Okay, I can hear you… actually,” Sam said. “I’m not brain dead.” He was surprised at how sore his chest was when he spoke. _Pneumonia achy_. He swallowed and it felt like he was chasing tumbleweeds down his throat.

Dean dropped to a squat, eyed him. “You back now? Like lucid?”

“Yeah, I mean— Yeah, I think.”

“You sure? Cuz you went full _Girl, Interrupted_ on me there for a bit. I mean, we were both askin’ you questions and—” he passed a hand over his face “—I’m talkin’ _full_ _vacancy_ , dude.”

“Am I sure I’m lucid… ” Sam said slowly, “is the dumbest thing you’ve ever asked me.”

Dean smiled and pat Sam’s knee with a wink. “That can’t be true, but I’ll take it.”

Cas pulled Sam’s chin and grabbed his attention. “I’m going to heal you,” he said. “Just bear with me a moment. I need to figure something out.”

_It was Cas_ , Sam realized, _slower than normal_. His cadence was dragging. His movements playing half speed as he straightened and looked around. He hooked a second stool and pulled it over. 

Dean stood up again, frowned. “What’re you doing?”

“It’s just precautionary.”

“Precautionary for what?”

“Being out there does something to you,” Sam cut in, knobbing fingers at this knees. He just needed something to hold on to. Cas’ hand was gone and he was feeling it.

Cas and Dean exchanged glances. “Okay, yeah.” Dean pat Sam’s shoulder and his hand was warm. “Nobody likes the dark. Pretty sure there was a whole _Nick at Nite_ show dedicated to that.”

“No, Dean. This is different. It’s not a joke. Did it not… Do you not feel it? It’s alive.”

“He’s right.” Alice squeaked around the front and rubbed her arms. She’d been hanging toward the left, blotted out by Sam’s bad eye. “It feels like getting stuffed into a box,” she said. “Or like someone just sucked all the air out of the room as they nail the coffin shut or something, you know?”

“It gets into your brain and just… throttles it.” Sam jerked his hands together, buried them against this stomach. His teeth chattered. _Nerves. It must be nerves._

“I certainly found it unnerving,” Cas agreed, hooking the stool with a heel and plopping on top. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the miasma was affecting your mind. The question is, why are you coming out of it now if it is? And what are the long-term health effects of such a thing?” Dean rubbed the back of his neck, paced away and Cas glanced over again. “But, let’s worry about this first.” He feathered fingers against Sam’s temple. Leaned in, and smelled a little too much like Dean to not to notice. “Dean? The nail?” he asked. “I really do need your help.”

Dean squirmed again, and paced back, reluctant. “Christ…” He folded a hand over Sam’s eyes, left the butt of the nail to peek through his fingers. He was getting leverage… 

Sam’s heart picked up the tempo. He latched onto Cas’ wrists and knew his unsteady hands were giving him away. _It’s gonna be fine,_ he told himself. _Cas is an angel and he’s done this so many time bef—_

“I have to apologize first, Sam,” Cas said quietly. “I’m a little unpredictable at the moment.”

_—Fucking grand._

“The hell’s that mean?” Dean croaked.

“—but I’ll make it as painless as possible. Are you ready?”

Sam grit his teeth. “Just do it.”

Cas started counting, and it was simultaneously too long and— _dear fucking God—_ not long enough. He hit _three,_ andthe feeling of the nail dragging back through the jelly of Sam’s eye that was the cherry on top of the night. He grit through—hit the wall and screamed. Pain crackled through his eye socket and hit his groin like a three-inch blade. He dug nails into Cas’ wrists. Blood spilled through Dean’s fingers, down Sam’s cheek, and into his mouth. Dean swore surprised, and his hand clenched tighter. 

“Cas! What the hell?”

Grace finally stuttered into Sam. It coughed through his nerves and pocketed the pain in messy spurts. His eye struggled back to life in an explosion of spotty colors that dusted the dark side of Dean’s palm like the fourth of July. The grace rushed his body, sewed up his shoulder, then, it died out. The colors dissipated. Cas’ fingers went limp at Sam’s temples and he suddenly slipped out of Sam’s grip, dead weight. He hit the floor hard and the stool tumbled after. Dean was swearing before Sam had a chance to piece it together. The pressure over Sam’s eye let up, only to quickly slam back down again as the _rock-in-a-hard-place_ realization brought his brother back. 

“You still bleeding?”

“I don’t know—I don’t think so. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know—”

“I got him. Here—” 

Dean’s hand switched for a balled towel over his bad eye and a lighter touch. Alice smiled at him, expression thin. “Hi.” 

Dean stumbled to the floor, pat Cas’ face to no effect. “Hey, hey— Cas, wake up!”

“What the hell happened?” Sam asked. 

“He just went over.”

Alice dabbed at his eye, and he tested a couple blinks through an irony burn. _Blurry and dark…_ but he could move it. The swelling was down. That was an improvement. The rest of him felt pretty good… 

Dean leaned an ear to Cas’ mouth and his surprise melted to panic. He hooked Cas’ shoulder and rolled him onto his back, laid a couple fingers along his throat.

“Is he breathing?”

“Just, shut up a second!”

Silence knotted the room up like the bloody towel in Alice’s hands. She glanced at the windows, eyes squeezing closed. Then, all at once, Cas bloomed to life again, teeth clacking hard as consciousness hit him like a bullet train. He gasped startled and flailed. Dean flinched and caught his hands. “Don’t start swingin’,” he huffed quietly.

Cas checked in with a quick breath. “No, I’m… I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“You’re on the floor. You stopped breathing. You know what the hell just happened?”

Dean’s pitch was soft, but his touch was softer, and it grabbed Sam’s attention. Dean could be _motherly_ , but this sure as hell wasn’t that.

“It’s… I’m okay. It’s fine,” Cas mumbled after a long pause.

“No—uh uh. _Precautionary-fucking-stool_ my ass. I ain’t letting you off this floor til you start talkin’.”

“It’s nothing—”

“This ain’t nothin’. Talk!”

Cas shook his head. “The… uh, the black did something to me.”

“The blood you mean? From the shadow creepers.”

“Yes. It did something to my grace.”

“That why you were givin’ us a light show outside earlier?”

“Yes, but, more than that. It’s—” Cas squinted, turned inward, “—I seem to still have little or no control. It was bad when I used it last time, but it seems to be getting worse.”

“Hang on, back up. What do you mean _last time_?” Cas’ silence ate holes in the atmosphere and Dean’s face fell. He rocked back on his heels.

“You mean before… when you healed me.”

“Well—”

“Did this happen?”

“...I—”

“Is that why you fell over?”

“Dean—”

“This is how you wanna start?” Dean spat face wide. “With secrets?” and Cas’ mouth snapped shut. "This is the kinda shit you mention!"

_Oh, shit…_ Sam's stomach balled, and he grabbed a glance at Alice.

“I’m not keeping secrets from you,” Cas muttered carefully.

“Yeah? Okay. Enlighten me then. What do you call it when someone you’re trynna trust doesn’t fucking talk to you, and they end up ass-on-the-floor not breathin’ from something— _I get the feelin’_ —coulda been avoided? It was almost round two of CPR for you tonight, Cas. You know what that means? It means this shit is serious. It means you might not be the _Big Bad Angel_ you seem to think you are. But, I don’t know. Maybe I’m fuckin’ wrong. Maybe keeping that to yourself isn’t shady. What do you think?”

Cas steeled. “I don’t understand what it matters. You needed to be healed, and Sam needed to be healed. That’s what I tried to do. Isn’t that what you wanted?” Dean shrank back, and the look they shared screamed broken glass. They were about to use it to cut each other bloody. _Or, Dean was._

“Whoa, hey, guys…”

It didn’t take a social genius to read the dynamic change between them, but Sam was admittedly running a couple of steps behind. Whatever he’d stumbled into was thin. He cleared his throat and Dean’s eyes danced over. In the brief hit they shared, they both knew that any facade— _deniability—_ was totally blown. 

Dean swallowed whatever it was he had perched at the end of his tongue, and Sam knew well enough that whatever it was, was better off unsaid. A moment later, Dean found something more bearable to look at on the scuffed laminate floor.

“We earn our bumps and bruises, we keep em,” he said, quiet, ominous. “Here on out. Keep the angel hoodoo to yourself. We don’t want it or need it. Understand me?”

“I’m just trying to be useful, Dean.”

“This ain’t useful. Furthest from, actually.”

“Hey!” Alice chirped, a little too loud. She had hands behind her neck, and tension was knitting her fingers white. “How ‘bout food? Everyone could use some food, huh? And beer? Lots of fucking beer. I’ve got all the beer. On the house. Right, Jer?”

The man at the bar didn’t look over. Hand over his glass, body shivering. He pulled his dirty cap lower sweat draining down the sides of his face. Dean blinked back wet eyes as he stood. 

“Sure,” he said, jaw stiff. “Nothin’ like dry pulling a three-inch nail outta my brother’s eye to whet the appetite. How bout you fry somethin’ up for everybody while I go puke? That sounds awesome. Don’t wait up.”

He stepped over Cas and headed for the bathrooms. Cas watched him go, and Sam looked at the bloody nail at his feet, depth perception, gone.


	11. Sleepless

ELEVEN

Sleepless

✣✣✣

All night, stiff against the side of the bar they’d waited. Strewn over the dirty floor with burgers turning to lead in their bellies. All because, _this was temporary_.

The sun was gonna come up, and the Darkness would be packed away again. They’d get a chance to breathe. To think. To get back to the bunker and shove their noses in all the right books. Fix this thing for good and burn all the reminders. But shit never worked out that way, and Dean should’ve known it. Should’ve at least expected it when Cas fell asleep exhausted— _all angel’d out_ , _literally_. 

The queasiness the sight of it brought to Dean churned his guts. _Cas is sleeping, and he sure as hell shouldn’t be_. Yet, he couldn’t deny the dark desire it simultaneously flipped on inside him. The thoughts he’d buried deep a time or two before that were crawling up now and nesting.

If Cas was losing his grace, then that meant he was going human again. And if he was human again, that meant there were a whole slew of wonderful fucking _downsides_ that came along with it. Like hunger, thirst, cold and hot— _Head colds, and sleepy sex, and aging… with me._

Dean reached for him and gently grazed his wrist. Watched Cas fidget, but not wake to it. For a moment the room was lost, and no one else was in it. Not Sam and his cloudy, bad-guy-eye, or Alice, asleep on the floor beside them. The overhead lights were no longer flickering, and the black wasn’t clotting the windows like a stalking aneurysm. Not even Jerry was there anymore, that perpetual background fish who couldn’t pry himself from the bar stools and pint glasses to say even a single word.

It was just Cas. And Dean. They were in bed, and it was comfortable. The room was cottony warm. Dean had just woken up and had nothing to do except spend all his time mining bliss from those pink lips while he memorized Cas’ rutty sounds. Then after, he’d make some breakfast. _Bacon and eggs. Waffles, and coffee, and grapefruit._ He’d watch Cas eat it while they talked. Cas would like it. He would tell Dean he was a good cook, and smile. The corners of his eyes would collect an innocent thought and mull it into a warm memory.

It would be good.

_It would be so fucking good…_

But then the bar came back, and the lights surged.

Dean’s belly flipped and his smile fell as reality soured the fantasy. He watched sweat drain down Cas’ temples and wet the collar of his shirt. Saw how he fought the heat with the same blotchy skin and sweaty forehead as the rest of them. He was curled uncomfortable on himself, arms tucked and head lolling. He’d probably wake up with a kink in his neck lying like that. A headache. Red eyes.

Like everyone else would.

Only Cas wasn’t like everyone else, and him dripping sweat wasn’t a cute human foible. It was a death omen.

He was a fucking battery. A heavenly charged, electric blue ball of light—Just exactly what the Darkness wanted, and no matter how far Dean tried to shove the thoughts, they kept coming up; maybe Cas wasn’t turning human at all. Maybe he was just dying. Plain and simple. Right in front of Dean’s eyes.

The black had already gotten inside, and it was eating him away. Pretty soon he’d shatter just like the rest of the lights.

_Not like this. Not now. Not ever_.

This was the buzzer. Time was up, and the reprieve they’d gambled for was lost now in a backwash of cold reality. Hope turned out to be about as useful as a broken condom: No one was gettin’ out clean.

The sun wasn’t coming.

_It never fucking was._ They’d waited all night, and it wasn’t getting any lighter.

The Darkness was winning, and Cas was slipping away while Dean sat there with a numb ass and a crying back watching it. All the crossed fingers and pennied wishing wells weren’t gonna change a thing. If he didn’t take the reins now, Cas would be the collateral damage he’d never limp back from.

He didn’t have to imagine all the hypothetical meals lost to know that to be true. Or think of all the chances he would never get to memorize Cas’ taste. Experience the rhythm of his body. To be close to him. Talk to him. _To be with him._

And maybe all of that shit would never end up happening regardless of what Dean did, because, _fuck_ if they didn’t have more than a couple problems between them, and Dean knew he had a helluva time keeping shit like this above water… But, the thing was, now his heart was all tied up in it.

Just like that.

Sentient and real, he had a lifeline and it wasn’t gonna go back into a box to be buried. Dean could pretend like he was gonna do this for Cas if he wanted to. For the promise he’d made or a duty he owed, but he knew he really wanted it for himself. He needed it.

_So bad._

And besides, they deserved to have a goddamn shot at growing grays together, didn’t they?

Tears crowded up in Dean’s eyes and he ripped his gaze away. What he wouldn’t give to wake up happy after it was said and done.

He’d give everything.

He kicked Sam’s boot. “Rise n’ shine, Annie,” he said swallowing the warble in his tone. “Looks like you were wrong. We gotta regroup, and we gotta do it now.”


	12. Hellbound

TWELVE

Hellbound

✣✣✣

“But this isn’t the original plan— We should stick to the original plan!” Cas said, hands balling. His tie hung loose around his neck, the knot in it merely an interpretation of what it should be, but he couldn’t seem to get his fingers steady enough to fix it. Dean scrubbed his face and sighed. He looked tired. More tired than the night before, and his hair was losing its form; going rogue fluffy. 

“Yeah, no. This plan has a lot more torches and groping,” he quipped, but Cas ignored it, his heart was in his ears.

“Splitting up is the dumbest thing we could do right now.”

“I get it, but there ain’t a lot of options, and sometimes stupid’s all we got.” He shook an empty lighter and pocketed it in the butt of his palm.

“No, Dean. No. Not for this. You don’t even know what’s out there!”

“We know enough.” Dean stooped below the counter and threw a couple dishes behind him, eyed a ladle and then tossed it too.

“What do you know? It could be completely different outside from what it was eight hours ago.”

“I know we’re burning out time on the grid, and we got no candles here.” The flickering lights helped punctuate his point.

“I understand that,” Cas said slowly, “which is why we all should go together. In a tight group, we'll be far safer than if we split—”

“And what happens if you light up half the city block and start pullin’ shit down on us?”

“I won’t. The fire light’s proven to keep them at bay, and with enough of it, I should be able to stay level—”

“No. Uh-uh. It ain’t happening. You’re stayin’ put.” Dean shook his head as he shoved a bottle of liquid Borax into a bag. He rounded the bar, brushed past Cas.

“Then, I’ll fight—”

“Not a chance.”

Cas bristled. “I’m not a child, Dean. You don’t need to treat me like one.”

“Yeah?” Dean straightened. “You don’t wanna be treated like I kid, then don’t act like one. You’re standin’ here wasting time arguing when you damn well know havin’ you along for this _is actually_ the dumbest thing we could do. The only one who’s had trouble out there is you.”

Cas huffed. “Are you implying Sam hasn’t had trouble out there?”

“Not your kinda trouble.”

Cas scowled. “Maybe not, but he’s far from fine! For one thing, he’s blind in that eye, and for another, he was having a near complete mental breakdown when he came in earlier!”

“I said he’s fine.”

“So you’re taking him?”

“Yes.”

“But not me?”

“Nope.” Dean shouldered the bag and kept his distance. He seemed to be too busy scouting the shelves to even bother with eye contact. He veered and suddenly took Jerry’s glass out from under him, turned it upside down and beer splattered over the wood, dribbling to the floor. “This guy’s eighty-sixed,” he said to Alice. “We need him walking.” She had her face in her hands and her knees bouncing. 

“Got it,” she mumbled behind her palms.

Jerry didn’t move. He was laid out on the bar top. Had been for a while. Castiel trailed after Dean, stepped around the spill. “Fine. Then I’ll just heal Sam again—”

“Wha—Not a chance!”

“Why?”

“You know why!”

“But Sam’s in no condition to be your only backup!”

“You think Sam’s worse off than you right now?”

“I’m _telling you_ he is.”

“Sammy?” Dean glanced his brother’s direction and Sam sighed, mussed his hair as he unfolded from the chair.

“I’m okay Cas,” Sam mumbled. He caught the bag as Dean tossed it.

“See? He’s good.”

Desperate, Cas tried Sam instead. “It’s a lot easier to heal this kind of thing now than it was with the nail still inside. I can fix you!” 

Dean shut him down again. “You ain’t healing shit till we know what’s goin’ on with you.”

“Me? What the hell’s wrong with you?” Cas felt the tears building and begged them back. “You’re being completely unreasonable and I’m trying to understand why!”

“I’m just tryna keep everybody alive.”

“You won’t this way.”

Dean threw the empty lighter he’d been playing with and it cracked off the far wall, and Cas snapped shut. Dean was obviously done talking. He’d been done since before Cas had woken up and found him stripping the shelves for supplies. This argument was treading water when he’d thought he’d been swimming. It boiled spite in the pit of his stomach. 

Sam and Dean were leaving. They were already at the front door, it didn’t matter what Cas had to say. “Fine,” he spat, with no small amount of animosity. “Then will you at least pray to me so I know you’re not dead? Or is that also too much to ask? Either one of you is fine, I suppose. It doesn’t matter which.”

Dean stopped in his tracks. He turned heel and paced back. Caught Cas with a flat hand to his chest, and backed him toward the kitchen. Cas gave a couple steps before he dug in and squared off. Dean wasn’t the only one who could be difficult, and Cas was done being moved. “I don’t like this,” he said. His voice hit that old-school base pitch he so rarely pulled out for Dean these days. It was a warning, but he knew it was just for show. A last-ditch attempt to fool the tears backing up in his eyes.

“You don’t gotta like it, you just gotta listen.”

Cas blinked at that and his levee cracked. He’d done something. He’d obviously done something— _The botched healing, Castiel. Why are you surprised?_ A couple hot tears rolled down his face. “I understand you don’t want my help, Dean, but this is suicide.”

Dean’s hard expression melted, eyebrows knitting together and mouth going soft. “Okay,” he relented. He fumbled unsure hands to Cas’ tie. “Alright, settle down. Why’re you wearing this? It’s a noose.” He fussed the messy knot loose but seemed to be working something around his head too. He ate at his lip, then mumbled “Okay,” again, this time to himself. “Fuck it. No point in keeping it formal, right?” 

His eyes snapped up and he quit using the silk tie for an excuse to touch. He pulled it from Cas’ collar and tossed it away, inched closer. Cas grabbed a shaky glance at Sam, but Dean didn’t waver. “I never said I didn’t want your help. I said I didn’t need your grace. That’s two different things. I _need_ your help. I need you here. With these people. You saved ‘em, they’re your responsibility.”

He carefully folded Cas’ collar down. His fingers slipped across Cas’ shoulder and over his chest, he tugged the sides of Cas’ shirt closed and sewed a button. “Sam and I are just gonna go to the auto parts store across the street. We’re gonna get a battery. Jumpers. Flashlights. Fuckin’ flamethrowers, if they got ‘em. Maybe these things are like Leviathan… so I got some Borax too,” he continued softly. “Then, we’re gonna find a car. Maybe it’ll run, maybe it won’t. If it doesn’t, then I’ll jump it. If I can’t jump it, we’ll replace the battery. If I can’t replace the battery, we’ll go and try another til we get one started.”

“And if you can’t?”

“We will.”

Cas fought like hell not to give into it, but a hand grew a mind of its own and went for a fistful of Dean’s shirt anyway, tugged him closer and kept hold of him. They were close enough for Cas to get all tangled up in the flush of his skin, the heat of his body. That intoxicating salty sweat smell. He must’ve let another tear slip because Dean’s eyes were trailing it down his face.

“And then we’ll come back,” he added quietly. “Thirty minutes is all I’m askin’.”

“You’re not asking,” Cas accused, eyes at Dean’s chest. “You haven’t _asked_ once this entire time.”

“I’m askin’ now,” he whispered, but it sounded more like begging. Only, he couldn’t be begging, because there were only a couple things Dean Winchester would ever beg for and only one other person he ever needed to beg. 

_Am I one of those—Castiel, no,_ he screamed, feet shuffling and fingers balling into Dean’s shirt as tight as his stomach was tied.

Dean trailed fingers up Cas’ buttons and knitted them behind Cas’ neck. His stubble was filling in. The red in it caught the light and went copper as he leaned in and ghosted a kiss over Cas’ temple. He probably meant for it to be quick, but it seemed to glue him. A breath stifled in Cas’ chest as Dean finally pulled back enough to consider Cas’ mouth with a rosy certainty. 

If he’d had a plan, it seemed to have just slipped out from under him. He brushed a tear from Cas away. It didn’t seem to matter that Sam was there, and it made Cas feel weightless. “I’m askin’ you to trust me,” he begged. “I’m tellin’ you, I’ll pray.”

 _Helpless is helpless, is helpless,_ Cas thought because saying he was weak for Dean didn’t even come close. His throat burned, and he chased the brush of Dean’s mouth. 

“Of course I trust you,” he whispered.

“Thirty minutes,” Dean repeated. “Say it back.”

“Thirty minutes.”

Dean kissed him, lips soft and mouth hot.

It didn’t matter what Cas said.


	13. Within/Without

THIRTEEN

Within/Without

✣✣✣

Dean left the light of the bar with a new feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something that used to be blue was turning purple, and he couldn’t quite explain what the fuck that even meant, but it kept him moving. And it kept him light.

Sam trailed.

They passed through with the needle-eye of light the torch afforded them, and it was only enough to peek through a tear of an otherwise sucking black. Everything outside the halo didn’t seem shrouded, it seemed _missing_. Almost as if the torch wasn’t shining a light on a world that was already there, but manifesting a pinhole peek at the end of one that used to be.

Dean’s throat burned. His eyes watered. He tucked his face into the crook of his arm, and even if the black hadn’t been bad enough on its own, thrumming up every childhood nightmare of what could be lurking just a breath away—Dean batted a crawling feeling from his neck, the air was cloudy now too. Not the tendriled fog from before, but ash like snow that fell so slowly it seemed to float instead. Perpetually poised to pull backward and suck up into space.

The only thing that weighed the world down now was that rotgut smell and the tangled, spider-legged vines that’d settled into the cracks of the street, filled them up and ripped them open. The path was rocky, and it wasn’t a fucking metaphor.

_We’re already dead,_ Dean thought as the ash buildup swallowed the sound of his traveling feet. _Someone in the White House pressed the big red button and the world went ‘boom’. This is the after. The end credits are rolling and we’re stuck in our own personal version of Silent Hill. Someone’s gettin’ set on fire. Someone’s gettin’ skinned._

His brain tapped into that _no-go_ zone and pulled a couple memories of hell back out. The feeling of a sharp, needled blade sliding around his ankle and up the back of his calf. The indescribable curl in his brain as his skin peeled off of his muscle like a bloody degloving. The demon would always take it all the way up his leg, stop at the hip and start in on the second one—

Dean shuddered and stopped in his tracks the torchlight suddenly unsteady. Sam bumped into him, and maybe they were kids again because Dean felt his brother tug at his sleeve. “Where do you think all the people are?” 

“They sure as hell ain’t out in this.”

“No, I know. I just mean, do you think they’re okay? Safe?” 

Dean didn’t need to think about that inky black powerhouse of a monster that’d had Cas dangling by his back leg to find his answer, but his brain went to the visual anyway. He let the silence sit. It was easier than saying _no._ “Maybe this was stupid,” he said instead. 

“You wanna go back?”

_Yes. Back to Cas. Back and kiss him again. Tuck him into a corner and tell him all the fucking good things you think about him but never say, because maybe we still got skin on our bones, but that scalpel’s sinking in and it’s only a matter of time_ —

“No,” he sputtered. Dean didn’t want to go back. He wanted to go _home._ He wanted everyone _safe._ He swallowed a creeping scream, blinked into the haze. “We’re already out. Let’s just—let’s keep moving. One step at a time. We keep moving, we get there. We go home.”

“This is so stupid.”

“Yeah.” There was no arguing that, so why try? He grabbed Sam’s hand, and it turned out they were both kids again, because Sam grabbed back.

Up the curb on the other side of the street, they reached the storefront, but the doors were locked. Dean rattled them and Sam shushed him quick. They both turned eyes on the street, combed the darkness, but nothing whispered back.

“Got your lockpick?” Dean slid a free hand over his jeans, felt and noted the hilt of his angel blade, his keys, a pocket knife—

Sam shook his head. “Lost it in the wreck.”

“Then you gotta shoot the window out.”

“Are you insane?”

“You gotta do it, Sam. There’s no other way in.”

The storefront had a large bay window in the front, single pane. Old motherfucker with glass thicker at the bottom than on the top, like it was melting down to hell. It caught the torchlight and laughed their reflections back at them.

“No way. It’s bad—that’s a bad idea.”

“You got a better one?”

“Yeah, Cas.”

“What the fuck is Cas gonna do? Angel himself inside _I Dream of Jeannie_ style? Doesn’t work like that.”

“I don’t know, what the fuck’s he doing riding the pine in the bar right now?”

“Listen, you weren’t there. You didn’t see—”

“Oh, I saw. I understand what this is about.”

A dissonant crack down the street echoed like a broken tree branch in winter. Dean’s stomach went numb as Sam screwed his eyes shut, tucked closer to Dean’s shoulder. They hugged the building and Sam fumbled the forty-five from his belt, held it low. The brick grabbed at Dean’s cotton shirt and he couldn’t help but imagine fingernails on the surface of the rough stone. The rattle whispered past them and disappeared.

Dean breathed. “The hell is with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Whatever,” he said after a beat. “Shoot the window.”

“No.”

“Then gimme the gun. I’ll do it.”

“This is insane,” Sam spat.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did s _ane_ shit start happenin’ to us while I was all nestled up to the Mark? What the hell are we gonna do if we can’t get in? We need a fucking battery if we’re gonna get a car moving, and we need to get one moving or we’re not getting home. So take a breath, and calm the fuck down. We catch the bad side of a garbage monster, we deal with it. Like we always do.”

Sam groaned, head scraping back into the brick. “Fine,” he huffed, “But I want you to be honest with me first.”

“Christ—about what?”

“You serious about this thing?”

“What thing?”

“You an’ Cas.”

Dean huffed, and the air burned the back of his throat. “Can we not do this right now?”

“ _Right now_ ,” Sam said, “because I’m pretty sure we’re about to die and I think you owe me.”

“For what?”

“Quit fucking around and answer the damn question—”

“Yes,” Dean relented quickly. The sweat was trailing off Sam’s brow and down his neck. There wasn’t any play in his voice. “It’s—I’m serious. It’s a serious—thing.”

Something close to surprise washed Sam’s face dark and worked that muscle beside his ear. “And if I tell you there’s probably a million solid reasons it’s a bad idea—does that change anything?”

The question caught Dean between the ribs and he eyed his brother in the dancing light. “A _million reasons_?” he sneered. Sam stared back. “Seems high.”

“Dean—”

“I don’t wanna talk about this right now—”

“Yes or no?”

“Sam, I don’t think—”

“Answer me!”

“No!” Dean snapped, stomach balled tight. “No—fuck off—it doesn’t change anything!”

“You sure?”

“Ya got shit hearing to go along with the bad eye? Now shoot the goddamn window!”

Sam scowled, then suddenly split from the brick, popped two shots off.

———

Castiel paced.

Through the front, behind the bar, into the kitchen. He stopped and considered the spider. Still tucked into the corner, it was all but lost in the flickering shadow. Small and alone.

Fucking irrelevant. _Just like me, apparently._

Only, he was pretty damn sure he wasn't supposed to be that spider anymore. That was the deal. _Wasn't that supposed to be the goddamn deal?_ And it wasn't the first time that thought had crossed his mind, but it was the first time he’d tried in vain to stop it. It was getting harder and harder to ignore that pervasive empty feeling he had scooping him out.

If he wasn’t the spider, then why was he standing there by himself again with something so much bigger than the sheetrock walls keeping him isolated? So much louder than that screaming blank space on the kitchen floor in front of him. Something so goddamn painful, it was bleeding him out at a hemorrhage pace: the silence. _The glaring, blaring, fucking silence._ And in that moment he wasn't sure if that was more deafening, or if it was the lingering scent of Dean clinging to Cas’ ripped shirt, that salty taste of Dean’s skin, the scrape of his teeth, that were drowning Cas’ sensibilities out now. 

Every passing moment was Chinese Water Torture, and all the absent prayers were slowly driving him mad. He balled fists at his sides, made a fidgety grab for the tie Dean had stolen from him and found the pit of his stomach instead. The question he’d been trying to bury unearthed itself again.

_Why’d Dean bother seeking permission at all if it was just for another goddamn lie?_

He spun on his heel, popped through the kitchen door and paced back to the front. He had no interest in getting his hands dirty answering that one. Not right now. Not when everything was so up in the air. Lies or not, Dean was in danger, and all Cas could do now was _hope. Hope he’s still alive. Hope he keeps his promise…_

Alice jumped as he passed, fingers falling from her mouth, cuticles bitten raw. “Anything?” she asked eagerly. She was a messy pile on a slatted wood chair, more on the table than she was off of it. He simmered the answer in his throat.

“No."

“Is that good or bad?”

“It’s typical, unfortunately.”

“Great. Okay. Good. That’s fine.” She wobbled up from the table and stumbled behind the bar. Knocked a stack of glasses over as she fumbled a fifth of Jack from the shelves and poured herself a shot. Kicked it back, poured another. She was a mess. Hair gone wiry at the scalp, sweat making it stringy. Her red lipstick was long gone, and it left her features washed out. She was a ghost of who he’d met earlier in the night.

“They know what they’re doing, Alice. Everything will be fine.”

“If that’s true, then why the hell you look so damn worried?”

She kicked the bottle of Jack up again and poured it heavy. Closed her eyes as she swallowed and drowned a thought inside the finicky burn. Tension was ramping. They were both about ready to burst. Castiel watched her, fidgeted, thought about making another round through the kitchen, but he slipped onto a stool instead. She hadn’t asked for this.

“I owe you a thank you,” he said quietly.

He folded his hands, but as she settled eyes on them, he balled his fingers up, self-conscious and unsure why. Her gaze was hot, touchy. She tapped her shot glass, licked her pale lips and the overheads surged. She took her time setting the bottle down, eyes dancing over to the heap Jerry made on the bar a dozen stools down and then leaned his way on a hip. “You sure about that?” she asked with a soft rumble. It tickled those evil thoughts from the ground again and they rose to the surface.

_Are you sure about that, Castiel? You sure you mean the same to Dean as he means to you? You sure you’ve made the right decision?_

_You sure you’re good enough for him?_

He’d stuttered quiet, and it hadn’t blown past her. She pulled another tumbler, filled it and slid it his way with a finger on the glass. He watched it, listened to it warble the wood. “Because he also said he’d pray to you, so how’s that going?” she added.

Castiel let the question roll through stiff shoulders. “My grace is low,” he offered optimistically. “It could be interfering with the prayers.”

“Yeah? How’s it work?”

“Just a regular prayer, but directed to me instead—”

She suddenly cut into his head. _Hate to break it to you, but I think you’re getting stiffed in the bad way, honey._ His mouth snapped shut and he leveled eyes on her.

_This is what drinking is for._ He was pretty damn sure about that now. He hooked the tumbler and took a deep swallow.

———

The bullets struck the glass off center, and it cracked at the right. For a moment, the whole thing held together, creaked and shrieked as the pieces splintered and slid, then, it totally gave out, shattering to the sidewalk below.

The sound was jarring and they both flinched back. It echoed through the street and kicked off the buildings. Rang in Dean’s ears.

The blackness crawled with the reverb, thrummed, pulsed like decay through old pipes and it set the air rippling.

Sam jumped the forty-five over toward the curb, aimed at nothing while he tried in vain to aim at it all.

Dean’s breath stuffed up in his chest and he didn’t realize it until his lungs screamed. He gasped, squeezed the throb from his eyeballs, wrenched the heavy metal hilt in his hands. He didn’t remember grabbing his blade, but it was out in front of him, poised and ready to fight anyway.

The glass settled, and the silence was twice as loud.

Nothing moved.

Sam’s wide eyes begged the edge of the torchlight, overdrawn in the shadow, then they dogged over looking for the signal. Dean gave it and they moved, no time to waste. They quickly cleared the shrapnel from the sill and hoisted the ledge. Dean came up just short of the floor on the inside, and the wood frame cupped his nuts, begged him to his tiptoes as thoughts of sharded glass urged him to think light. Sam tripped in after, wider leg spread not enough to make up for whatever dissociative coordination condition seemed to be bleeding him dry.

Cas was right, Sam was in no condition. The off-target window shot said just as much as his _overgrown-puppy-trying-to-walk_ did, but it didn’t change anything. No one was good right now. What mattered was that Cas wasn’t the one with his ass on the line. And Dean wasn’t gonna take the time to unpack that. Still, “Thing is, you don’t wanna talk about it either,” Dean said panting heavy in the clean air. The popcorned glass crackled under the twist of his boots. Sam collapsed against the wall, a thin, dark line. “

That’s what I’m trying to do. Talk about it.”

“Why?”

“Cuz I’m trying to find out if you’re doing cake or pie.”

Dean sneered, “Fer—what?”

“For the wedding,” he said with a flippant smile.

“Oh for fucks sa—”

“Two little grooms on top…” Sam walked a pair of fingers in the air.

“Okay, we’re done. Never talk to me again.”

“It’s important.”

“Honestly, shut the hell up. I’m so done with you.”

Dean swept the torchlight through the store. The aisles near the window were where all the flashy shit was housed. Decals, steering wheel covers, fuzzy dice, and air fresheners. Dean didn’t need any of it. And he didn’t need the nuts and bolts either, though this store had a good selection; Big Ol’ gallon containers propped at an angle with a mix of shit inside each one. And on a good day, he couldn’t imagine anyone ever bought anything from them, but he’d be kidding himself if he didn’t admit it was fun as hell to sift through after he’d get cut off at the bar.

He pushed to the front and Sam followed. Past the displays, kisses of light bounced off chrome parts, plastic buckets of nuts and bolts, plastic-wrapped replacement parts, and ripped boxes. He hit pay dirt as they broke free of the stuffed aisles and found the register. A pyramid display of car batteries along the front wall smiled back. _Duracell Ultra: On sale $50. What a fucking steal._

Dean snatched one from the side as Sam veered at the check stand, crouched and started double-fisting packages of almonds, chips, candy, and all the bottles of water he could fit into the duffel. Dean jumped behind the counter, felt sweaty hands along the underside corrugated wood lining, and, _Bingo—_ “Bless that backward-hat redneck,” he beamed. “I knew he was packin’ back here!”

Sam brushed his hair back and it stuck with his sweat. “What’d you get?” he asked unfolding.

“Sawed shotty.” Dean stabbed the handle of the torch between the register and battery, then popped the weapon open. “Fully Loaded.” It was heavy in his hands and totally fucking priceless. A crooked smile twisted his mouth. “Whaddaya say, Sammy?”

“Guess our luck’s turning,” Sam said, straight face.

Dean snapped the shotgun shut in his hand. “There’s that positive attitude I love.”

———

Cas twisted the glass and it groaned over the tabletop. “I understand Dean’s not an easy person in his best days, but it’s something I admire in him.”

“He seemed pretty easy earlier.”

Cas cocked his head, watched Alice’s eyebrow take flight. “I don’t think I understand.”

“I’m just saying, walls are thin and it didn’t take a lot of coaxing to get the horse outta the gate, that’s all.”

He squinted, brushed her off. “What I mean is, I don’t understand humans,” he mumbled. “I try to understand them, but I don’t.”

“First of all, that’s one of the stranger things I’ve ever been told, and second, get in line, man! Humans don’t even understand humans. It’s not exactly like you’re alone in the universe.”

Cas’ eyes snapped up, raked through her, then settled into the glass again. “That doesn’t make it any less frustrating,” he said.

“No, it doesn’t. But if you wanted less complicated, then you shouldn’t have hooked your wagon to a pageant queen.”

“A what?”

“Nothing.” Her face went soft, some level of amusement prying her open again. Mascara was marking sweaty shadows under both her eyes, but it didn’t seem to bother her.

“In any case,” Cas frowned, “my point is, Dean being difficult isn’t new, but the opportunity you lead me to, is, and I owe you a lot for that. I owe you everything, in fact. Regardless of how it… plays out.”

“Noted.” She tapped their glasses together, winked.

The warm alcohol buzz was washing Cas sideways again, he knew it. He felt it in his heavy sigh. It was probably because he had an empty stomach, he realized. Because things like that mattered again apparently, and he hadn’t a clue if it was temporary or a very dramatic kind of permanent, or what the hell that meant to any of them…

But, while his brain was warm, he might as well indulge in all the warm thoughts. What else did he have right now other than the banked memories of Dean’s taste? The eagerness of his body. That sweet kiss he’d bothered to give when they were both laid out on the floor. And even though it was all falling apart now, and Castiel wasn’t entirely sure why, those memories were still his to have. He toyed with his glass, watched Alice pick at some dirt on her oversized tee. “I thought I was going to die out on that street,” he said softly.

Her eyes snapped up, tendons drawing out in her neck. “You remember that? You were roadkill.”

“Yes, I remember all of it, unfortunately.”

She bit her lip, glanced the windows. “What was it like?”

“Unpleasant.”

She sputtered a laugh. “Okay, yeah. I can imagine. In fact, I don’t gotta imagine, ha.” She anxiously rubbed the sweat from under her eyes. “But you’re here now, all fixed up. That’s what matters. Now all you need is a lot more of this.” She hooked his tumbler with the mouth of the bottle and poured another heavy, medicinal dose. Cas smiled, took it, sipped it.

The bite of the liquor was so much more intense than it was when his grace was still intact, and he’d be remiss to not take note of it. It was more fiery now, more unbridled. It prickled the hair at the back of his neck. And he couldn’t keep himself from wondering if a kiss from Dean would do the same thing. If the heavy whiskey scent on his clothes would raise Cas’ hairs as easily as the Jack Daniels flavor did.

“But, I’m here,” he continued, “because of you. As is Dean, really.” He leveled eyes on her again, cocked his head. “Why did you call Dean?”

Alice thumbed her glass, tipped it and drained it dry. “What do you mean _why_?”

“Yes. Why? What part of our earlier conversation lead you to believe Dean could actually help in that kind of situation? Seems like an odd jump in judgment when you really consider it.”

“It’s not. I think you’re reading into it. I was just pulling at straws, sweetheart. Drink your Jack and worry about the shit we’re living in.” She tipped the fifth again and he watched the liquor glug into his glass. “You get so chatty when you’re drunk, I love it.”

Castiel frowned, sat straight and listened to his spine crack. His mouth went dry. “Alice—”

A crash at the end of the bar jumped both their attention to Jerry. His sliding arm had tagged the upturned glass from the tabletop and knocked it to the floor. Only, Jerry wasn’t throwing things. He wasn’t upset. He was falling, sliding right off his stool. First his arm, then the rest of him, following that broken glass right down to the floor. Cas struggled out of his stool and stooped over the heap of human, fingers at his neck. Jerry’s face was white, dark vine-like lines running through his translucent skin where blue veins used to be. His body was already cool. “He’s dead,” he said flatly. This hadn’t just happened, but they were only noticing it now. “He’s been dead a while.”

“Are you serious?” Alice brushed up beside him, crouched and slid her own hand over the body, poked at his neck, searching inexperienced for the carotid which would give her a pulse. “What the hell do you think happened? I mean, he wasn’t my favorite person, but I feel like the more the better right now, you know? God, I shoulda cut him off hours ago. I figured he’d pass out first.”

Cas turned his arm over, squinted at it. Black tint in the crusted blood at the cut in his hand. “He didn’t drink himself to death, Alice. He had a heart attack, or his liver started bleeding. There was nothing we could do.”

As he spoke he suddenly caught another heavy whiff of that flowery perfume again. The same stuff he’d smelled when he’d first walked into the bar. Only Alice’s makeup had run out on her now. Her hair was a wreck. Her shirt, dirtied.

The Winchesters smelled about three days sour and this point, and if Cas took the time to consider it, he was probably a little ripe himself. Yet, somehow, she still smelled like flowers, and it didn’t dawn on him so much as it punched him in the gut.

“Still,” she mumbled brushing her hair back. “I’m gonna miss that sexist bastard. He came in here every day over the last ten years—”

Castiel stood and backed up. “Did you know, traditionally many flowers are used medicinally around the world?” he asked. Her face scrunched up as she twisted to look at him.

“Wha—”

“They’re believed to be able to cure things like headaches, heartsickness. Increase energy even. And, if you dig deep enough, you’ll discover that flowers, like carnations, for example, were once often worn for protection. Witches believed they could help prevent capture and hanging. It worked, and so the flower was rotated into some of the most common protection spells.”

Alice slowly leveled eyes on him, and Cas drew his blade, ticked the edge of her chin with it. “That’s why you’re hellbent these days to find a witch who doesn’t smell like carnations,” he said salty. “I think Dean would call that a, uh, _fun fact_ , actually.”

——— 

“Got a four-wheel drive,” Sam said bobbing close to a silver F150 with a step gate, tugging at the door handle. It was locked.

“All terrain’s good, but we need somethin’ with the _push to start_ option,” Dean said brushing past.

“A what?”

Dean kept moving. Ash and dark and cacophonous sound, the air was stuffy hot, but the torch at the end of his arm was hotter, and they were in the closing stretch now. He’d sweat through his shirt. It was clinging down the length of his back as they peddled through the street. He veered as an old Dodge Neon caught his eye, paint peeling, rust along the hood like clotted blood. It was tucked up next to the curb near the start of the residential streets. If it hadn’t moved all day, he might be able to get it started where it sat. And, _hell,_ if all else failed, it’d be a quick battery re-seat. The older cars were easier to work on, hands down.

He pressed a shoulder into the roll window and listened to the glass groan. Felt a finger along the seal. “A push to start option,” he grunted again. “Somethin’ we can roll if it all goes to hell.”

“That’s not gonna fit everybody,” Sam gasped. His face was in the crook of his arm again. His voice muffled in shirtsleeves.

“Seats five.”

“Yeah, children.”

“What’s her name—Alice, she’s small. She can sit in the middle, or you crazy kids can double. We gotta go two miles, not all the way to Disneyland.”

Dean threaded a long wire hook between the glass and frame, and fished the mechanics, found the lock and popped it with a smile. “There it is, baby,” he whispered opening the door. He slid into the driver’s seat and tore out the plastic paneling under the steering column, pulled the harness connector. Tugged the bundle of wires loose. Sam crouched beside him, held the torch high and they sweat the heat.

Outside a low growl ate through the quiet and they both jumped, the torchlight skipping as Sam pulled to his feet. “The hell was that?” he asked.

“Probably something awesome,” Dean deadpanned as he chased a drop of sweat to the tip of his nose and blew it off. He pulled the battery wires loose, twisted them together. Went back in, fishing.

“Yeah. I’m sure..”

Beside the crackle of the fire was a sound that eroded nerves. Popping twigs and wet meat. Heavy breath—not theirs. A pair of reflective eyes caught the flame, then disappeared into the dark again with a quick blink.

The Winchesters froze.

Sam tipped the barrel, and it moved jumpy with the twitch of his muscles.

“Get in the car,” Dean huffed suddenly. But, Sam held his ground, squinting into the black backdrop.

The eyes blossomed again, closer than before, flirting with the edge of light. Wet red blood along a long snout glistened. Hackled fur cropping broad shoulders. Another guttural groan and Dean lost his stomach. “Sam, get in the fucking car—”

The creature made its move and Sam fired. The shot lit the street for the blink of a moment, and it unveiled the dog. An oversized German shepherd with wild eyes and blood matting its fur. The bullet missed entirely. Dean yanked his brother backward and Sam lost the torch to the street, tumbled inside the cab and pinned Dean beneath him. He made use of the momentum and rocked back, tucked his knees, yanked the door shut. The dog hit the window with gusto. It scrapped against the frame, snarled and barked, claws screeching over the siding.

“Geeze!” Sam bat the hair from his face, slapped the manual door lock down.

“Get off!” Dean wheezed, and Sam rolled off to the opposite bucket seat. The dog followed him, attacked the passenger window, growling and biting as it beat its face into the glass, leaving blood smears behind. It hopped onto the hood and danced back to the driver’s side. Jumped over the flame, pacing. Blood drooled from some injury on its chest. Black crusting the edges of clotted blood. It had an ear chewed off. No fur where its collar used to be. The dog was stripped raw like someone had tried to skin it, or it’d tried to skin itself. Bared tendons and muscle shined in the light as it moved, paced. Eyes so dark they looked black.

“The fuck—”

“I don’t know—”

“—is that?”

“It’s just a dog.”

“That ain’t just a dog!” Dean screamed. It narrowly missed the licking torch once, twice, as it danced around the car. “What the fuck kinda shot was that?”

“I’m sorry!” Sam snapped back. “I don’t have any depth perception! I’m doing the best I can!”

“Then why’re you the one with the goddamn gun?”

“Just—start the car!”

Dean fumbled with the wires, obliquely aware that the battery they’d just fought for was on the outside. He stripped the starter wire, squinted into the dark at the bundle, found the ignition— _hopefully, the ignition_.

The dog hopped to the roof, back down again. Then it knocked into the siding, the back window cracked. “Fuck off, Cujo!” Dean grunted, flinching.

“Oh, shit...Not good.” Sam slapped his shoulder.

“I’m tryin’!”

“No—Dean—”

Dean looked up in time to see the dog’s luck run out. It danced through the flame again and its tail lit. The air in the car turned into a held, horrified breath as the animal went up in flames. It took the dog’s haunches, its back, its stomach. Up around its head, but the dog didn’t stop barking. Growling, clawing at the window. It didn’t notice.

_It didn’t fucking notice._

“I’m gonna be sick,” Dean admitted, nausea washing over him. “That’s so fucked up.”

“Put it out,” Sam begged.

“I ain’t goin’ out there! That dog’s certifiable!”

“Jesus, then shoot it!” Sam eagerly offered the forty-five. Dean considered it, took the gun. Hesitated at the roll window, but the animal wouldn’t back off. He balled a hand into his stomach, watched the flesh sizzle and melt. It lunged at the driver’s side window and the glass spider webbed. It nosed a hole through the center of the glass and squeezed its snout through, blood beading from the cuts, flames licking the window. It snarled and snapped at him. The skin around its face started to string. “That’s so fucked up—” Dean beat it back with the butt of his hand, and when that didn’t work, he pressed the barrel into it. Popped the shot off. The gunfire exploded in the inside of the cab, and they both balked, ears ringing. Blood splattered Dean from the left, and the dog toppled backward. Dead.

Its body curled as the fire ate it.

Dean pulled the neck of his shirt up and wiped his face. A quick glance to Sam found him, about as gape-mouthed as Dean expected he’d be. “Like, so fucked up—” he said again.

Sam nodded. “Yeah…”

He sounded like he was gonna be sick. Hell, Dean felt the bile carving through the base of his throat too. The car smelled like burnt hair and gunpowder. Dean couldn’t feel his humming fingers anymore. He was having a heart attack, _maybe._ He felt at his chest, lightheaded. No decent air to breathe. He closed his eyes, thoughts wandered to Cas, and he almost immediately took them out at the knees.

Cas needed to stay safe, and in order for that to happen, he needed to stay out of it. So everything was fine, everything was going to be fine, and even if everything _sure as fuck was not fine_ , it was gonna stay that way. He breathed out. Flailed an attempt to recover. “That was one hot dog—” and Sam glared. “Too soon?”

“Start the damn car.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Dean redirected, doubled down, rolled his pocket knife around the plastic insulation and stripped the end of the ignition wire. _Here we go._

Sweat dripped off his chin and he tentatively tapped the wire bundle, listened as the engine chirped to life. _Easy as pie._

They both breathed a sigh of relief.

No battery change needed. She was gonna play nice— _for now anyway_. He coiled the wires and let them hang, popped the door with another grabbing glance at the charred dog corpse, and plucked the extra battery from the street, tossed it in the back. Snatched the bag, and tossed it too.

“We didn’t even need it,” Sam mumbled.

“I ain’t countin’ anything out at this point. We did the work, might as well keep it.”

Dean threw the car into first and gave the sputtering, old engine a little gas, clutch in. “Let’s get the fuck outta here,” he mumbled fixing a mirror, even though he wasn't sure why.

Sam nodded, rubbed the sweat from his eyes. “Yeah. We have to stop by the warehouse on the way, though.”

“What?”

“Yeah…” A double take. “The warehouse. Remember the people I stranded there? I told em I’d be back. We have to go bring some supplies. We can’t leave ‘em to die, Dean. Those people are on me. They’re on both of us.”

Dean blinked hard as the car purred under them. A belt squealed, the engine sputtered. He gave it a little more gas, eyes hitting the rearview mirror even though there was nothing to see. “Yeah,” he mumbled. Sam wasn’t wrong. There was a whole highway of people waiting on them. “Then we’ll do it first.”

“What?”

“Do it first. Get the errands done, then go home.”

“You’re gonna drive all the way to the warehouse district just to drive all the way back to town and then out again?” Sam snapped. “For what?”

“I ain’t takin’ Cas anywhere but straight to the bunker. That’s the deal.”

“Whose deal? It’s not a deal if you’re makin’ it up yourself.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yeah, that’s obvious. You know this is one of the reasons—”

“Oh, what reasons?” Dean cowed.

“One of the million reasons this whole thing with you an Cas is a bad fuckin’ idea! You do this shit to me already, now you’re gonna do it with him too? This is how it all goes bad. This is how people die. Cas was dead right about that.”

“Alright, enough of the Dr. Phil bull—” Dean flipped the headlights on without thinking, and the dark street went up bright. Ahead of them, a line of creatures trundled over the walkways. Darker than their black backdrop they stood out like inked pillars. The stooped heads turned in stop-motions jumps. A dozen sets of eyes catching the light, just like the dog’s had. “—shit.”

Fear lit Dean’s stomach like wildfire, snapped Sam’s mouth shut. “God, shut ‘em off—”

Then the chirping started— _Fucking rabbit screams_ —Sam slapped Dean’s shoulder. “Shut ‘em off!” he yelled, and Dean made a messy grab for the knob. The headlights went out. They sat paralyzed in the couched torch glow, eyes bugged and chest tight.

The street suddenly creaked, vines snapping clean as something big moved their way. Dean fumbled the gun into his hands. At the edge of the firelight, a scaly body brushed through. Slow and methodical it moved. The car shivered with its footsteps. Sam’s fingers balled into the seat as Dean cocked the forty-five, held it ready. He closed his eyes and begged his heartbeat to slow down. He tasted the sweat on his upper lip, felt it stinging his eyes. _Think about home, think about home,_ he pleaded to himself, because he knew if he didn’t focus on something, those goddamn thoughts would wander Cas’ way, mold themselves into prayers, and he didn’t need that. He really _fucking_ didn’t need that.

The creature kept moving, trailing the edge of the car, just outside the reach of the firelight. It clipped the back bumper, and the car took a tiny jump sideways, then it disappeared back into the shadow. The chirping disappeared with it. Dean’s pulse beat his eardrums raw.

Sam gasped, eyes wide and mouth gaping. They didn’t look at each other. They didn’t need to.

“I ain’t takin’ him, Sam,” Dean said slowly, quietly. The shiver in his voice was something outside his control. They were in Jurassic Park, except these motherfuckers weren’t dinosaurs, and there was no power grid to reset for safety. “I won’t be the reason one of those things eats him up.”

Sam scrubbed hands down his face. “Just drive,” he said, breathless.

———

The lights surged, but this time the bulbs were unforgiving. They popped, rained sparks and washed the bar in dark, save for a little citrus candle Sam had lit earlier in the night. Alice took a chance and made a move for the bar, but Cas was quick to follow. He clawed into the yellow candlelight and grabbed a handful of her shirt, caged her at the edge of the bar top, stools spilling over as her heels kicked them out.

“Fuck you!” she spat, turning. “I’ve done nothing but keep your sorry ass alive since you walked through that door, and you’re gonna pull a knife on me? Where’s the gratitude you were preaching a minute ago?”

“Tell me what you have to do with this.”

“Nothing! Are you delusional? You wanna find someone behind it, I have a feeling you should probably try a mirror!”

“You know me?” Cas asked.

“Everyone knows you. You’re the only angel dumb enough to trail the Winchesters, and I guess now I know why.”

Castiel tightened his grip on the hilt as her eyes dogged the edge of his shoulder and went wide. “Whoa, Cas—”

Suddenly, Cas tugged backward, hands clawing at the back of his shirt. He lost his footing and fell back onto the tables, slid across a tabletop. He took out the salt and pepper, the little square menu, went straight off the other side, and hit the wood floor hard. His blade bounced away.

Jerry was on top of him a moment later, black filling the spaces where white in his eyes used to be. Fingers digging themselves into the soft skin at Cas’ sides, stubby nails dragging bright pink lines into his flesh. One of Jerry’s knees had Castiel’s right arm pinned to the floor. With his left, Cas held the snapping face off. The reek of death shrouded the body. _The. Dead. Body._ There was no sulfur in that smell. This was a whole other beast.

Cas pleaded with his grace and it sputtered inside him, but wouldn’t call to life.

Jerry wiggled from Cas’ sweaty one-handed grip and sunk teeth into the side of his neck. Cas screamed, writhed as he felt the teeth rip into his muscle and tug back like a rabid dog. Desperate, he dug a finger into the pressure point at the cleft of Jerry’s neck, kept pressing, felt blood wet his finger, as he broke the skin and went straight into the meat. No response.

Cas panicked, kicked a leg and swept one of the big man’s feet out from under him. He came down on Cas hard, pinning him. Cas clawed fingers into Jerry’s face, pushed him back. Suddenly the spine of a butcher’s knife sheared through Jerry’s back. The tip came straight out his chest. It dripped cold corpse blood onto Cas’ neck.

Again, Jerry didn’t respond to it. He plowed forward, levied his weight into another throat-level attack. Cas’ grip, blood-slicked, slipped, and Jerry snapped at his neck again. The tip of the knife pulled up through the body and greased sideways through Jerry’s temple this time, Alice beside them with a two-handed grip at the handle.

There was a beat— _a held breath_ —where Cas could only feel his throbbing at his neck and the dumbfounded horror prickling his fingertips numb, before Jerry’s eyes rolled back in his skull. He tipped sideways and hit the floor in a messy pile, dragging Alice with him. She dropped her death grip on the tang and stumbled up again, hair flying. She fell back onto her ass, hands shaking. “I’m not against you!” she screamed.

Castiel breathed. Smeared the blood at his neck and looked at his hand. “Who are you?” he gasped.

“I’m just a fucking bartender. And I’d like to keep it that way. But let’s stow that shit for a second while I ask you why this motherfucker’s doing impressions from _Night of the Living Dead_.”

“Things that die after being exposed to the miasma rise again.”

“There’s more than those big, black monsters out there,” she agreed. She extended a hand and Cas hesitantly took it, pulled to his feet. They settled eyes on the corpse at their feet. Dead of a heart attack. Dead again from a stab wound through the head.

“Dean…” he muttered.

———

“How many?” Dean asked throwing the car into park. He was careful to keep it running. He was even more careful to keep an ear on the hum of the engine. She was doing stellar so far, and he couldn’t be happier about it. Sam brushed his hair back. He was a firefly outline in the orange running lights.

“There’s twenty-one. Maybe twenty depending…” he said.

“Depending on what?”

“If the driver put pressure on it like I told him to.”

“Wonderful.” Dean hauled back and grabbed the duffel off the backseat. “Quick in and quick out, you get me?”

“Yeah.”


	14. Roadrunners

FOURTEEN

Roadrunners

✣✣✣

Sam wanted to be home six feet under a pile of lore more than anyone else right now, but instead, he was in the middle of a warehouse parking lot with a struck flare like it was the Fourth of July in Hell. It was one of the last two emergency road flares still in stock at the auto parts store—not a tried-and-true torch, but it’d have to do. With a fifteen minute burn time, taking their time wasn’t even on the table. Thirty minutes tops and they were fucked for light after that. 

And yet, Dean was perched in the front passenger seat, craned around into the back digging through a bag instead of just walking around to pop the fucking back door. 

Sam squinted “Dean…” 

“Sec.”

Sam huffed, squinted at him through the hole in the driver’s side window. It was bloodstained at the edges. Memories of that nose burrowing through the etched glass sparked through his head. The blood dripping as the dog forced its face through the split safety glass. Memories of the meat as it pulled from the bone. 

He glanced around, tried to blink the haze from his left eye. The ash wasn’t as built here near the big metal buildings. It all seemed to drift downhill onto the streets, between the upturned roots and cracked pavement. The roads were still passable, even if the wheels spun a little, but the gravel lots were left near bare. The ash that was, was settled in pools of puddled summer rains from the heavy machinery divots. But it was getting thicker.

Whatever Dean was doing was taking too long. 

“We only need the bag!” Sam snapped finally. He shifted and the gravel under his heels scratched the silence like a jumped record.

Dean shrugged and kicked his door open, metal hinges screaming. “Yeah, I know we need the bag,” he grumbled, “but you’ve lost your damn mind if you think we don't need an army to go along with it.”

“You think you’re gonna find that in the back seat?”

“Never know till you check.”

“Grab the damn bag.”

Dean did a double take. The dimples at his smile-lines made an appearance as he swallowed against a pair of pursed lips. He pulled a little white first aid kit out from under his seat and shook it, pitched it at Sam’s head. Sam caught it, but just barely. “No big deal,” Dean muttered. It was obvious whatever that heavy feeling settling into Sam was, it was bubbling its way out.

The tension wasn’t only because of the chewable air or two-story closet-monsters combing the back nine. This was Cas and Dean—whatever Sam should call the amalgamation of them that had Dean worrying teeth marks into his lips. It was all the assumptions and thoughts Dean had already credited to Sam that weren’t even close to true. The kind of stuff that included gay and weak. Pathetic and wrong.

Problem was, there was no denying it, because denying it was confirming it. Sam knew his brother better than that. So, it’d wait. Everything always had to wait. Eventually shit would pop, and all the truths and feelings would stain their boots red before the air would clear, and another problem would crop up.

Dean left the car running, shouldered the bag, and that was the last they talked. Maybe if they had, one of them would’ve realized they’d left the shotgun behind.

The warehouse door screamed open—rusted corrugated metal on a slim sliding rail—but quiet followed. No screams, desperate voices, wide eyes. Just darkness kissed in jumpy, red light. “I brought supplies,” Sam called. His voice pitched through the empty room. Dean elbowed him.

“You sure it was this one?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. ”

“Maybe they got sick of waiting—”

A dragging sound cut Dean short. A pair of knobby knees toward the rear of the room slid into sight. A flash of dark eyes. Dirty skin, and torn jeans. An awkward hitch in the tiny feet that splayed them in a crooked, uncomfortable way. “I brought supplies,” Sam said, slower this time.

A little hand rose, wrist wrenched in a U and fingers uncurling like the tendons were fighting back. Dean slapped Sam’s chest, stopped them both in their tracks. “I’ve been here before,” he said.

Sam started to ask what the hell that meant when the angry red cut on the girl’s face caught the light. Her skin threw all the horrible colors back. Red and black: the color scheme of Lebanon, Kansas now. Red where her cheek used to be, just a drooly hole now in what was left behind. Stringy blood pretending to sew the skin flaps together, teeth shining through, while the black corrupted the green in her eyes. Veiny and bulging, dark treads extending beyond the whites and under her pearly, dead skin.

Sam blinked again, hard. He was seeing half the picture, he had to be.

“Like the dog,” Dean told him.

Sam shook his head, “No.”

“Yes, like the dog, Sammy.”

Dean dropped the bag, swore under his breath—he forgot the shotgun. He forgot the damn shotgun—and pulled his knife. Sam fumbled his pistol out, lost the kit and torch in the dirt. Squeezed his eyes shut as the light rolled away. His breath holed up in his chest. His aim stammered. He backed up a step. “There’s one,” he mumbled and Dean’s eyes hit him, sharp.

“Take a breath.”

“There’s only one.”

“Sam — ”

“This is how it starts,” a voice warned from the void beyond the fingers of light. “They’re fine until they go crazy.”

Sam jumped. Looked around. Couldn’t tell if someone had spoken or if he was just hearing it.

“Sam!”

The little girl shambled forward, unsteady on her feet and another head peeled from the shadows, crowded in beside her. A driver. Brown hair, blood down his neck. Then, another. Panic ripped Sam’s thoughts from him. He clenched his teeth. “There’s one, two, three — ”

“Sam, don’t you fuckin’ fall apart on me. I need you!”

“No — ” Sam gasped, eyes wide. “I’m trying!” but, all he could think about was the numbers. The black.

_The floor is melting. Is the floor melting?_

He clawed his way to a prayer.

———

_There’s three, Cas._

Castiel squinted as Sam’s voice crackled at the end of something like an old-timey connection. It sounded like it’d been plucked from the cusp of space, lost on rebound from the satellites.

_No, more than three, maybe. Can’t see—They’re melting. Is it… is it melting?_

Alice was looking at Cas now, her brow folding up. “Who’s praying?” she asked, her voice level but buried in dark. Cas dropped the balled rag from his neck and squeezed it between his fingers, he felt some blood drip to the floor.

“Sam—But I… I don’t understand—”

_Too many—Can’t think. We’re gonna die. There’s too many! All the people—_

Cas hit the door hard, yanked it open and a blast of stagnant heat hit him in the face with a slap. Alice was beside him in a beat slamming it shut again. “No! are you insane?” she cried.

“Move aside.”

“You don’t even know where they are—Do you know where they are?”

“I’ll find them.”

Her eyes were wide. She’d thrown herself between him and the threshold. The bell above the door hummed the vibrations of her body. He pushed her to the side and slipped the door open again. Squeezed out before she could hook his shirt.

Ash came up in soft spurts at his feet as he trudged through the foot or so of settled sediment. He had a mind to tuck his nose in his arm, but he knew it wouldn’t help anything. The blackness was suffocating, like trying to feel your way through a cornfield without the help of the moon. He lit his grace, and the landscape suddenly ignited in a soft blue blanket. He groped for another connection to Sam, waited.

“Cas, this is suicide!” Alice said beside him again. Her voice was strained, shoved up tight in her throat. She had Dean’s gun tucked under her armpit, and she was fighting with a dripping bar rag, trying to tie it to a piece of the broken chair she’d salvaged earlier in the night. She stowed it all long enough to grab his arm, yank him toward the building.

“Go back to the bar.”

“Fuck no! I’m supposed to go off and die by myself in that bar cuz you got a thorn under your fingernail about a goddamn smell? After everything?”

“This has nothing to do with that— ”

“Like hell it doesn’t! Listen, if Dean was right about anything, it’s that you should stay off the street, so how ‘bout we both go back, huh?”

“You go back.”

“Cas— ”

“If Dean was right about anything, it’s null and void now,” he growled, shaking her off. He scoured the street. There were no footprints to follow because the ash didn’t ever seem to let up. The scorched earth buried the ghosts of anyone or anything that tried to brave it. He jogged to the other side of the street and stopped as he saw the shattered storefront window. Alice trailed.

“Okay, maybe, but you know this is insane. You are playing with fire right now—and not the kinda fire we need. You can’t just kamikaze out into the middle of this shit all a flair!”

Cas stopped and Alice nearly collided with him. “I understand you’ve helped,” he said, “but you’re asking me to ignore this prayer when you know I can’t. They aren’t coming back to the bar, Alice. They aren’t coming back at all if I don’t try to help.”

“You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“Then I die.”

“Wha—no! No no no— ”

He leaned into the window, brushed some broken glass aside. It was as black inside as it was out. No movement. Ash just starting to build upon the inner window ledge. His stomach was restless and his grace showed that with a shivery curl.

“They’re not here,” she huffed.

Castiel ignored her, mumbled, “They might be down by the warehouses. That’s where Sam left the group of people. It would be very much like them to go back.”

“You wanna go all the way to the warehouse district on a hunch?”

Down the street, something cracked. The echo shoved itself into all the blanketed corners. They both stilled and waited.

“What if they’re not there?” Alice whispered. “What if they’re up the street getting a car? What if we pass ‘em in the dark and everyone dies two feet apart because you got bull-headed about a prayer— ”

He rolled his eyes and peeled from the building, scoured the street. His shoe clipped a root and he nearly went over. His grace surged as he caught himself, and a guttural growl called back. Alice’s eyes darted toward it. 

“Okay, listen to me— ” she said, twisting in front of him, hand against his stomach. “I get that you don’t trust me, and you have other things on your mind, but you have to believe me when I tell you that you can’t die to the Darkness—you’re the one person who can’t let it take you.”

“I'm not letting it take Sam or Dean either.”

“Just stop for a second! Would you listen? I mean it really can't take you.”

He paused, frowned. “What does that mean? Who are you?”

“I’m your—Fuck!” she fumbled and dropped the torch, shoved the safety-locked gun at him. “Here, hold this.” Cas took it on impulse, the pearl grip fitting between his palms. The feel of the pistol raked all the nerves already screaming Dean’s name. He watched her retrieve the pieces from the street and start in on round two of wrapping the petroleum-soaked rag to the chair leg.

“Alice?”

“I don’t know—I’m your white rabbit, I guess...”

“My what?”

“Your guide, Cas. I’m your guide. It’s my job to get you from point A to point B without dying.” She got the end tied tight and huffed, then shoved that at him too. “Light this.”

“What does that mean? My guide?”

“I don’t know—but it’s a helluva job, lemme tell you—Light the torch, please.”

Cas looked through her. “I don’t believe you.”

She threw her hands up and growled, silhouette shivering in his uneasy light. “What the fuck? You don’t believe me when I lie, you don’t believe me when I tell the truth…”

“Then what’s point B?”

“I—honestly—don’t know till we get there! This shit doesn’t come a priori!”

He stilled, eyes wide and heart pounding. Dread choked up his throat. “Is this… Is this a dream?”

She shrunk back, suddenly blinking like she was trying to clear dust from her eyes. Her jaw snapped tight and she lunged forward, dug fingers into the wound at his neck. He whined and ripped her hand away with little finesse as the bite screamed alive again.

“Did that hurt?” she spat.

He clasped a tight palm to the hot, gnarled skin. “Yes!”

“Then, no! I guess it must not be a goddamn dream! It must be very fucking real!”

“Was that necessary?”

“I don’t know! You’re kinda pissing me off! Now, will you please light the fucking torch?”

He hissed a couple hot breaths as he straightened. He called his grace and touched a finger to the rag, watched it ignite in blue, orange, and yellow. Alice’s face lit warm, tears fresh on her cheeks, breath heavy in her shoulders. Her mouth was drawn in a thin line, the tension obvious in the way she held herself. He didn’t see any lie there. She was begging him to believe her.

“Fine, then help me,” he said quietly. “I get the feeling I can’t do it alone, and I can’t… I can't let him die. So help me.”

Her face drained. She almost said something, but Cas’ grace suddenly went up in her face, an angry wave of bright blue drawing his wings up and out. He took the street up with him, and the torch became nothing, just a speck of yellow in the middle of a white-hot heavenly breath. She shied away from it, but not before he saw her terror. Not before he heard the crack of vines behind him.

The creature could’ve gone straight for the top of him this time and there would’ve been little he could do, but sometimes good fortune came dressed in the strangest damn outfits. The shadow walker snatched him by a foot and took him over, face first into the pavement. The ashy buildup cushioned his fall. It fluffed out around him, stuffed up in his nose and mouth, threatened to choke him. It dragged him back, up. He suspended into the air, dangled by a foot, upside down and helpless, staring down the bad side of a child’s worst nightmare once again. Those specked, white eyes rolled up and then down, right and then left. No rhyme or reason to the direction they pulled.

Cas didn’t miss a beat. He followed the momentum through and leveled Dean’s gun out in front of him. He flicked the safety off, and, as the beast swung him higher, he fired two rounds.

The bullets tore holes in the monster’s face—one in the teeth, and the second high between its eyes. Blood and brain spattered back at him. Hot acid on his skin, and he was loose again — free-falling back to the pavement below.

He tucked in time for his upper back to take the impact. The gun clattered away as the force stole his breath from his chest. A loud crash beside him told him the creature was down without having to look, and his grace flickered out. He sputtered, coughed.

Suddenly, Alice was over him again, grabbing a fistful of his shirt. “Fine! You win,” she shrilled. “You’re as fucking dramatic as your boyfriend—Get up! Up, up, up! Let’s go get him!” 

Cas struggled to piece her together. It’d only been a moment, but it felt like he’d just fallen in from a different book. She waved the fire in his face, dug fingers into his jaw. “On your feet, Castiel! These things don't travel in singles!”

 _She’s right, of course. They don’t_ —and everything caught back up again, real time.

———

Dean was in the dirt quick, the little girl over him, stringy arms and legs flailing. She was small, but slippery quick. Fingernails blunt-cut, but sharp enough to drag marks into the skin of Dean’s arm. He held her off, her chin in the butt of his palm, arm straightened out above him. Her black eyes went wide as she tried to snap her jammed-tight mouth. “Sam—”

“This is how they die,” the voice in the darkness said.

“Shut up!” Sam screamed.

 _Nope. Nothing. Everything’s fine_ —The blade felt hot in Dean’s hand. You can’t, he thought. She’s just a little girl. It was fleeting, but the moment the thought hit, he knew that that wasn’t fucking true. This wasn’t a little girl. It only looked like one. She scrabbled at Dean’s arm, blood beaded. Sam hauled her off by the shoulders, but she twisted and slipped his grip. Grappled onto Dean again and took advantage of his dropped guard. She sunk teeth into the webbing between his thumb and fingers. He liked his hand. He needed his fucking hand. He growled, spun the knife and buried it into her side.

All bets were off.

Cool blood soaked his wrist, down his arm, plodded into the dirt as it poured off his elbow. She didn’t react. She shook her head, tried to rip her mouthful of meat off his fingers. Sam tried again. Got her by the foot and dragged her off, but she tried to take Dean’s hand with her. Dean screamed, Sam lost her as she slipped a shoe. She clung to Dean, scratched at his face, narrowly missed an eye. He scrambled for the hilt, wrenched it free, and stabbed her again, angled the goddamn thing up through the bottom of her ribcage, because he fucking knew how to hit a heart. But, that didn’t do it either.

That shit was already done beating.

Dean’s skin crawled. Blood and drool strung down her chin, dripped onto his chest, splattered his face. He was gonna lose a piece of his hand. He was sure of it. The realization hit him like a brick about the same time Sam’s pistol popped off. Skin, blood and bone exploded from her jaw in a wet cloud. Dean gasped as the bullet ate into the dirt beside him and spat dust. “Fuck—Don’t shoot me!” he screamed.

“Sorry.”

If it’d been any further south, Dean would be digging it out of his own shoulder. Her grip let loose as her jaw slid to the side broken, and Dean took his hand back. Sam scrubbed his blind eye. It caught the distant red light and flashed, cloudy. He started to ask something, but grunted and cut short, suddenly pulled backward into the shadow.

“Sammy!”

The pistol popped off again, and a bullet hit nothing important.

“I can’t believe I’m watching more people die,” the voice said.

Dean growled, ripped the blade free more time, and quit fucking around. He forced the girl over, pinned her to the floor. Spun the blade in his hand, and stuck it through her face. Her mutilated, black eyes lulled and she finally went limp. He scrambled to his feet, breathed, groped the shadows for Sam. He blinked hard. Tried to breathe, clear his head. The harsh, blazing red light was kicking his senses in the crotch. He shook the burn from his hand. “Sam! Talk to me!”

 _“This is always how they die,”_ the voice said again. _“I’ve seen it a dozen times. They go crazy. They die. They come back. But not like they were before—”_

Dean squeezed his eyes shut— _Everything’s fine. No voices. Everything is just fine_ —He found Sam in a pile near a workbench, big motherfucker on top, clawed fingers tight to Sam’s throat. Dean grabbed a handful of the walker’s hair, yanked its head back, and slit its throat in a fluid arc. Sam flinched against the expected spray of blood, but there was none. Just a drool of what was trapped in its skin. The blood was pooling in its gut. It was bloating. A dead corpse, walking.

The walker in Dean’s hands wobbled, but it still didn’t let go. Its grip was tight on Sam’s throat. Dean spun the blade between his fingers again and stabbed it through the temple. Watched it shiver and let loose. It fell forward onto Sam in a lifeless lump. Sam gasped for breath, eyes wild and fingers spread wide.

“Headshot necessary,” Dean choked.

_“Watch out. There’s more than that. That’s not all of ‘em. You’re both gonna die.”_

Dean looked up, saw the third hanging in the shadows. He put a mental pin in her quick. She was fumbling, quieter than the others. Half of her face was already missing. It looked chewed off. Some braces-straight teeth had made easy work out of the soft skin at her mouth. She tucked into the wall stumbled forward, stopped. There seemed to be some kind of electrical disconnect between her head and feet. It kept her leaning near the dingy warehouse walls. It kept her pigeon-toed and tripping over her own feet.

Movement in the shadows behind her boiled his stomach. He grabbed a fistful of Sam’s shirt, groped Sam’s pocket and pulled the second torch. More of them pulled from the dark. A lot more. Time was up. Everyone was smelling them out now. Dean struck it, threw it between them and watched as they all slunk back from it. 

He squatted, pulled Sam again. “Get up!” Sam hit him away, eyes sliding side to side, madly searching.

“I gotta—”

“Yeah—You gotta get up!”

“ _You gotta die_.”

“God, shut up!” Sam screamed. He huffed, plastered a hand over his nose and mouth. He wasn’t focusing. Maybe he couldn’t. Sam tracked something invisible across the ceiling. He was hallucinating, that much was obvious. “Shut up! Shut up—”

 _“I can’t believe you’re just gonna sit there and die.”_ The voice laughed.

“—Shut up!”

Dean frowned, a new revelation crawling through his chest. As much as Dean felt like he was one tornado and two-fifths of Jack deep into the wrong side of the Wizard of Oz, he could still touch everything. Smell it. Feel it. There weren’t any invisible things flying through the room for him— just Sam. Everything was _real,_ except the voice.

And they couldn’t share a goddamn hallucination.

“Oh, Jesus, it’s real—” he gasped. “Sam it’s real. The voice is real. I can hear it too!” He ripped a handkerchief out of his back pocket and shoved it over Sam’s nose and mouth, held it there. “Breathe,” he demanded. “The air’s doin’ something to you, I think.” Sam clawed it back down.

“I can hear—” He shoved it to Sam’s face again, shook his head.

“Keep it on.”

“I prayed,” Sam said behind the muffle.

“What?”

“I prayed, Dean.” He clawed Dean’s hand. “...I’m sorry.”

Dean’s stomach bottomed out. He stared, tears burning his eyes flash-flood quick. “Are you sure?”

“Y-yeah. I mean—yeah.”

Bile bubbled up in the back of Dean’s throat. He suddenly wanted to sit down—had to sit down. He sunk to the dirt, giving in to his shaky knees. _You just killed him._

Cas probably hit the streets the second that prayer hit his radio. Maybe he got to the auto parts store, saw the broken window and crawled inside. He’d see it was empty and he’d panic. He’d run up the street where Dean told him they were gonna jack the car. Only, he wouldn’t find them there. He’d find the shadow walkers instead. And then—pop—a flash of grace and those brilliant fucking wings, and there’d be no more hiding after that. All Dean could see was Cas’ bloody, shredded body discarded on the street. No one to help him… Save him… Just slipping away. Alone.

The walkers in the background suddenly didn’t matter. The fading torchlight. The Darkness. Dean closed his eyes, buried his face in his hands. It was a damn stupid thing to do, but he prayed anyway. He should’ve done it earlier. Should’ve kept his promise. So maybe this was all a lie to keep him upright, but, hell if he wasn’t gonna run with it anyway.

_What a fuckin’ chance I bought us, huh? Told you I’d fuck it up. Don’t know why I expected anything different. I’m sorry, Cas. God, I’m sorry. You know how many things I still had to tell you? How many things we were supposed to do together? I lov—_

Suddenly, the muzzle of a gun bit a hot mark between his shoulder blades and he stiffened on instinct. He opened his eyes and glanced Sam’s hands. They were empty. The pistol must’ve gotten tossed when Sam lost his feet.

“Gimme the keys.” The voice was uncanny-valley familiar, except this time it wasn’t kicking off the ceiling and echoing through the room. This time The Wizard was out from behind the curtain, and he had a well greased forty-five caliber tucked against Dean’s spine.

“Oh, good. You are real,” Dean said flatly. “See, Sammy? What did I say? He’s real. Thought I’d lost some marbles there for a sec. You really had me goin’. Where were you hidin’, huh?”

The man huffed, twitched, and fidgeted at the growing pile of bodies in a near corner. All of them, just standing there mulling at the edge of the flaring light, trapped by it, watching. “They can’t climb,” he said. Dean pulled his eyes from the dirt and caught a glimpse of a metal ladder in the far corner. Some high scaffolding set up for painting and then left to rust.

“Now, get up an’ gimme the keys.”

Dean threw his hands up and stood, slow, Sam watching. “Alright, take it easy,” he muttered. “We’re all on the same team here. Either put it down or turn it on the corpses making their way over here.”

“Shut up and give ‘em to me.”

“Dean—” Sam hit Dean’s boot. “Dean, I had six—”

“What keys?” Dean brick-walled. “Keys to what?”

“You know what keys!” the man screamed. He shoved Dean forward, pat his pockets down and growled when he came up empty. “Where are they?” The pistol ate a mark.

“We don’t have them,” Sam said. Dean kicked him, tried to keep him quiet.

“I know you do!”

“We don’t!” Sam insisted anyway. It didn’t take much more than one quick glance to the warehouse doors to give the whole game away; _we don’t have them, the car does…_ Dean coulda called it like that before the muzzle ever hit his spine. He had some shit-useful ESP sometimes.

If they lost those wheels, they were as good as dead.

The gun shivered and Dean spun to stop him. He meant to grab the man’s arm, but he clipped the pistol by mistake. He yawned shock as it went off on him in a blinding white burst of gunpowder. The bullet ripped through his stomach and he stumbled back, tripped over Sam’s feet and toppled onto the ground gracelessly. The man ran.

Sam was over him, hands hovering and eyes wide as he tried to align all his mental ducks.

 _Yes, Sam. It’s happening. You’re seein’ it_ —Dean gasped, suddenly struggled for a breath and coughed blood when he found one. Sam shoved the bandana into his gut hard.

“No—no, no no!” he screamed. “Jesus—Dean. It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

Dean took a couple shady breaths. His chest felt like it was on fire as his stomach washed numb. He could hear the crackling. He shook his head. “Go,” he gargled. He pushed Sam back, tipped him off his heels and onto his ass.

Sam scrambled back. “No! Shut up— ”

“Yes. Gotta stop him, or we’re all dead.”

Sam’s mouth snapped tight. His eyes danced around the perimeter, scanned, cataloged and analyzed. He was a lot of things, but even at his worst, he was never dumb. He held a tepid breath, pulled the blade from his belt and shoved it into Dean’s hand. “I’ll be right back,” he said squarely. “I swear to God, I’ll be right back. You be right here.”

Dean took the blade, curled fingers around the hilt like it was a handhold. His palms were slippery wet. Hot, uncomfortable in the stagnant air. The red torch curled chemical light at the warehouse walls. He nodded, and Sam went. The sound of rushed feet on the gravel replaced with quiet. The inescapable sound of blood bubbling in his airway.

He pressed the bandana into himself harder, a rush of blood oozed from between his fingers. He wheezed, grit his teeth, eyed the precarious white first aid box a few feet away. Good thing he brought it…

He stretched to reach, grazed the corner with his fingertips and it turned in the gravel. Taunted him. He tried again, tapped it with the edge of the blade, watched it spin again.

_Fuck._

The walkers crawled over each other, fell against the wall. Deterred by the road flare.

The numb was washing away.

He shivered pain and bit through a scream.

———

The car’s running lights were the only thing gemming the world now.

The cabin light sparked on and washed the thief in yellow. A stolen yellow. A warmth that wasn’t his to take.

 _Hasn’t he already taken enough?_ The thoughts screamed at Sam in the parking lot as he slid through the gravel and grabbed the edge of the door just before it shut. The metal caught on his fingers, jumped off the latch, and he ripped it wide open again. With nothing in his hands, he stared down the barrel of his own pistol.

“Let go,” the driver hissed.

“I can’t let you take it.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

The passenger door suddenly flew open, and Alice, soot-dirty and sweat-soaked, slid into the seat with Dean’s white pearl-grip pistol leveled at the driver’s head. She gasped in the cabin sucking in all the clean air, hair in her face.

“Hey, Sam. How’ve you been, man? Listen, I was gonna see if you had another gun I could borrow for a sec, but it looks like you already lent that one out.” Something in the back seat caught her eye and she perked, “Oh, fuck. Does this work?”She threw herself over the seat backs and dragged the shotgun out. Slid out of the cabin and planted her heels. She fired both rounds into the darkness, and it coughed Cas out. He hit the ground and rolled as a shadow creature toppled in from out of sight, down into the car’s running light orange.

Sam’s mouth went slack. He blinked hard, twisted knees in the gravel and took a taste of sympathetic pain for whatever Cas had just endured. “Up, up, up,” Alice commanded, and, as Cas clawed back to his feet, she heaved a smile. “You got it!” she called. “You’re good. That one had you for a while, didn’t it? Sorry, I ran outta ammo.”

She grabbed his elbow as he stumbled over, bloody and black, face set hard and grace flickering out. He was a shell. Bloody and beaten. Covered in all that searing black, but still upright. Because he wasn’t done. He always came for Dean. And, here he was. All the way through hell again to get there.

He softened a look on Sam, before sliding a sharp one at the man in the driver’s seat. “Where is Dean?” His voice cracked as exhaustion broke it.

Sam let tears slip. “I had six,” he said, unsteady. The muzzle bumped into his temple, and he turned a long look over at it, then down at the man’s bleeding leg.

 _First the stalled truck, then an eye, then my brother_ : this man—the truck driver—was slowly taking it all.

“After I shot him, I had six left. We used two on the window —” Sam popped two fingers up. “One on the dog—” Out came another. “Two on the people inside—” He had a whole hand up now as he turned eyes on Cas, let his stale breath sour in his chest. “And he just used the last one on Dean.”

The gun on Sam clicked, chamber empty, and the truck driver’s face fell.

———

Castiel stumbled through the open warehouse doors. He was wiping brains on the hem of his pants before he really realized what he’d done, but the world was a godforsaken blur, and careful ethical consideration was only reserved for the good times. If he’d ever doubted that, it sure as hell was cemented as he got eyes on Dean again: sprawled out in the middle of the floor, shock quickly taking him.

“You stupid son of a bitch!” Cas screamed. His voice pitched high, every string of it near breaking.

A group of dark-ravaged people moiled in the corner. They fell over each other as Cas’ anger kicked off the walls. Just like the shadow monsters, they were deterred by the light, but the energy he brought to the room ignited them, pulled them to the boundary’s edge. He collapsed next to Dean, ripped Dean’s shirt open at the bullet’s split, and actively— _fucking blatantly_ —ignored the surprised eyes looking up at him. He grabbed Dean’s balled hands, pried them up to see. _Single gunshot wound to the abdomen—_

“Cas—”

“Shut up.”

Dean’s breathing was fast, too fast. He either hit a lung or this was shock, which was going to take him even quicker. Cas rolled him onto his side, Exit wound, exit wound—and found it near his kidney, Downward projection. Probably no lungs hit, except, bullets had minds of their own, and he had blood at his lips and a sick fluid sound on his breath. There was a torn-open first aid kit that looked ravaged, bloody handprints all over the sides, the innards examined and tossed aside. Dean had a mess of gauze in his hand, but that had already soaked through, which meant bleeding wasn’t getting controlled.

Cas rolled him back, shoved Dean’s own shaky hands back down onto the wound, and Cas squeezed his eyes shut. He groped for grace. Anything, anything—but the black on his skin snuffed it deep. Clotted it in the core of him, just out of reach. He was useless. The world went speckly and Cas tried in vain to blink it away. His grace was a pilot flame, and the black was eating all the oxygen.

“Dammit!” He slapped the empty first aid box, watched it hit into the walkers and spin into a wall. “You lied to me!” he shouted. “You promised you’d pray, and you didn’t! You said you weren’t going far, and then you did! You said Sam could handle this, and he clearly couldn’t! But, at least he prayed, Dean! Sam prayed! Maybe he handled it better than you!”

“Where is he?” Dean gasped out.

Cas hunched over him, rested a light touch to the artery in his neck, Pulse thready, and blinked surprised when Dean kissed him, soft and weak. He tasted like the coppery blood on his lips. Sweat. Fear. “Outside cleaning your friend out of the car.” Cas held the tears.

A quick, lopsided smile ticked at Dean’s mouth. “What happened?”

“I killed him. He didn’t pray either.”

“I did—” Dean choked and swallowed. “I did pray.”

“No. You said goodbye. You don’t get to do it like that.” Cas quickly belted the angel blade by Dean’s side and stumbled to his feet again.

“I didn’t think I’d get the chance to do it in person.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not giving you one now. Now get up.”


	15. Drive

FIFTEEN

Drive

✣✣✣

_Keep pressure…_

_Keep pressure…_

_Keep pressure…_

Castiel just had to get to water, wash off the black. If he could do that, and Sam could control the bleeding, they’d be able to patch something together and Dean would have a chance. He wouldn’t be fine—but he’d have a chance.

Cas needed him to have a chance…

Dean brushed his face, “Stay,” he rasped, and Castiel blinked, straightened. He hadn’t realized he’d slouched over till he was sitting up again.

The two of them were sandwiched together and tucked up against the back door. Dean’s skin was a cold kind of clammy that only highlighted the shallow pull of his breath. The loudness of his airway. Cas watched him try to swallow, but he only fought the wobble of his jaw and drooled blood instead. He was losing coordination, body shutting down. Cas wiped it away.

“I’m here,” he whispered. He held Dean tight, watched the blood seep up between his pressed fingers and crawl down the back of his hand. Drip to the carpet. Dean’s head rolled loose against Cas’ chest as the little sedan turned a corner and hit a creeping root. The headlights sliced through the darkness just enough for them to crawl.

But, the clock was draining.

“We’re almost home,” he added, and maybe that was for himself, but it somehow evoked a little smile from Dean anyway.

“Home,” he echoed with a wispy breath.

Cas kissed his head and relaxed against the window. His adrenaline was coming down and all the pain was catching up. A jarred shoulder. A couple broken ribs. Lacerations over his legs and torso, and the bite at his neck. There was probably more, but really, it was just the black. Cas could feel it seeping into him. It pricked the edges of his grace and lapped it away. That heavenly part of him was tucking away, further out of reach. What little of it he had left was fading into the nothingness. A nothingness that was taking him too.

He fought his heavy eyes but slipped forward anyway and mentally floated from the car. He left behind that bloody stink and all the acid wash ache of his skin. The feel of Dean’s uneasy heart under his fingertips and that black card shiver wracking the body propped between his knees.

He smelled the grass and dust. A light wind on the horizon ruffled life through his loose collar as a bright, fat moon haloed the treeline. And, he hadn’t been here before, but it felt like he had.

Glass speckled the tufts of grass as the hill broke into a lot, leveled out and stretched up to the feet of a boarded building. The tall, rusted sign beside it stood like a gravestone.

_Juanita's._

 

“ _How long?”_

It was Alice, but she seemed so incredibly far away. Cas tipped his head, frowned. He looked back the way he’d come, but he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there, or why the blood on his hands was teasing the numb feeling in his stomach and spreading it to his toes.

“ _Five,”_ Sam answered.

“ _He’s got less than three.”_

“ _Shut up.”_

The upturned Impala sat coyly beside the matchstick sign, exhaust still spilling from the tailpipe. Windshield broken and driver’s side door bent in. Castiel couldn’t see anyone inside. But she looked like she’d tumbled off the road.

Down the way, a feed truck purred, front half in the ditch, trailer jackknifed and blocking the lanes. There wasn’t any traffic. It was too late in the day for traffic.

So, the Impala was alone.

The wind rushed through him, and maybe it was seventy-five degrees, but it chilled his bones. Blood dribbled into his palm and he looked down at it, turned his hand over and watched the heavy spatter crawl down his wrist.

There wasn’t any time left.

_Dean._

Cas suddenly snapped alert again with a gasp, Alice pulling at his face. The glaring cabin light felt alien. _That wasn’t on before_ — _Was it?_ He straightened and nearly hit his head on the window behind him.

“Oh, hell, okay. No. You're not dead too,” she whirred. She was hanging off the seat backs in her bra, bloody Wonderland T-shirt in her hands like at some point she's had it against Dean. Her ash-smeared face was extra bright with the halo of electric light pouring down on her.

“What?” Sam asked suddenly.

_Too?_

Cas clasped a hand to Dean’s stomach again, only this time, there was no protest. No grit-teeth whimper, or pained finger flex. His eyes were lulled. His left arm strewn across Cas’ thigh and hanging limp off the seat, fingers dragging in the carpet. _The bloody carpet._ There was no warble on his breath, no shiver in his shoulders. Cas groped for a pulse and came up empty. Terror stole through him. “No—not like this—”

Sam’s eyes hit the rearview mirror. “Cas?” He tried to turn, and the car bucked on the road.

Cas dragged himself out from under Dean’s body and gracelessly fell into the foot space between the seats. He tried again, grabbed Dean’s wrist and gravely waited at his radial artery, buried his head in Dean’s chest. “Come on…” he whispered. “Come on!”

Sam groaned behind the steering wheel. “Cas! Talk to me!”

“He’s in cardiac arrest.” It sounded like it’d come from someone else. Someone else must’ve said it because Cas’ mind had left him. All he could think about was how he felt wrapped in plastic. Mummified. Contained. Restrained. Once with all the power of heaven—all the pull of the stars—now with nothing. A fallen angel as useful as an unstrung violin. What good was his grace if it was just going to congeal there and wait for Castiel’s whole world to go cold?

“We’re almost there,” Sam gasped. “We’ll hose you off, an’ then you can heal—”

“No, it’s too late for that.”

“--And then you can heal him!”

“Sam…”

Alice watched Castiel, perched carefully at the back of the seat. Her bloody t-shirt draped over the headrest, her fingers digging into the foam. He stared at her, then looked down slow, hands at Dean’s chest feeling his cooling skin. The utter, unmistakable difference of a pulseless body, and how sick it made him feel. The grit of dried blood crusted under his fingernails. A hundred thousand possible moments left to dry in the carpet.

 _What good is it?_ he screamed to himself. His breath suddenly jammed up in his chest as he pulled the blade from his belt and turned it on himself. _Through the throat is the easiest way—_

“What the hell are you doing?” Alice screamed. She dove over the seat for him and tried to grab the weapon away, but he was quick to push her back. Heartlessly, he turned the blade on her. He’d held that godforsaken thing so many times he’d lost count, but never had it felt so dire. 

“Don’t,” he warned. She didn’t blink, and he didn’t breathe. Didn’t waver. The two of them had enough water under the bridge at this point for Castiel to understand that everything with Alice the Bartender at blah blah cross street and blah bar wasn’t riding Kosher. That nothing she _said, did, or portrayed_ added up. But that was neither here nor there, and maybe it mattered in the broad scheme of things, but it sure _as fuck_ didn’t matter now with Dean dead in his arms and the smell of blood so thick in the air, he could’ve carved pennies out of it. He’d drive the blade through her eye socket _hours_ before he’d waste the time to asking her why she’d stop him now. And she knew it. That quick flick of her eyes from the sharpened tip and back to him told him so. Confirmation unspoken, just like that. They were both done with the game. 

She backed away, and he restrung the blade at the well of his clavicle. _Through the throat is the easiest way to extract, but the chance of survival in the current circumstances is slim—_ He glided the tip down, dragging a white line over the center of his sternum. _Second best place is straight through the bone,_ but, that was a highly difficult task without a bone saw, so he slipped it to the side, over his left pec. Up a bit to the right where the muscle coiled over his breastbone. A simple place to slide between ribs, and he dug in. 

Pain shot through him like a lightning strike. The desperation in his fingertips made the blade unsteady, and unsteady made the job that much harder.

“Whoa, Cas —” Sam stuttered. “What’re you doing?” He had his eyes in the rearview, and the car jolted again. Cas slipped, cut an extra long mark, and nearly ran himself through. 

“Sam—” 

“What’re you doing?”

Fresh blood dribbled down his chest, over his ash-stained skin, onto Dean, and onto the floor. He gasped as shivers wracked him, and he let the pressure up. Took a minute to breathe. “Watch the road!”

“What are you doing!”

“I’m retrieving my grace.”

“I—I thought you couldn't.”

“He can’t,” Alice said. Her stare sent chills.

Castiel ignored her. Muscled an uneasy breath as the nausea passed, and he tried again. Angled the blade and sunk beneath his skin, under the muscle. He slipped the tip between his ribs, skimmed bone, and the metal trilled a chalkboard scratch ache through his nerves as he rocked it. Cut away the connective tissue as his jaw cried through grit teeth. Just as that welcoming, warm unconsciousness threatened to win the tug-of-war, a shiver of bright blue grace spilled out into the cabin. It pooled, round and weightless in the air. “You can get to anything if you try hard enough,” he breathed, hands shaking.

He tossed the blade, and a quick call of will curled it into his bloody palm. It balled up, like a pour of oil in water. 

This was the core of his grace; the bright blue seed that made all the angelic things work. In the best of times, it regenerated him, powered him, kept him toe to toe with the best. And in the worst, it was the thing that kept him going. Full-powered battery source that kept life in him when others perished-- _Only, he didn’t need it anymore._

He settled eyes on Dean and blinked the fresh, cold sweat from them. “If this works, it isn’t going to be pleasant for either of us,” he whispered.


	16. Three Words

SIXTEEN

Three Words

✣✣✣

Dean came back into that rancid blood stink. The heat. A sharp, electric light overhead and a cacophony of panic that knit the atmosphere into a thick, seasick haze. He left the taste of sulfur and the strange, disembodied nothingness behind to fall straight into Cas’ wide blue eyes. They were all Dean could see, till the wheels in his head clicked into place and Cas sunk out of sight.

Coming back was never easy. It was always a _shock-of-cold-water-in-the-dark_ kind of burn that left him gasping for air with a chest full of needles. But, this was different. He felt like someone had just rerouted the main breaker through his ribcage and flipped the switch. He had his back off the seat and his mouth wide before any audio kicked in, because audio was always the last. _God knows why you’d wanna hear someone screamin’ at you to stop before you’d already fucked something up._

“Don’t move! God, Dean, don’t move!”

Dean was jammed flat again, looking at Sam upside down. Hair obscuring his sweaty face as he leaned over and held Dean to the seat. 

A blinding burn ate through Dean’s stomach and spread. He couldn’t grab a breath. It melted into his legs, his feet, the tips of his fingers, and he writhed against it, whole body humming. “God— Stop!” he begged.

“You’re okay,” Sam told him, but maybe he was asking. _He must be asking_ because Dean wasn’t okay. He tried to fight Sam off, but it was fruitless. “No, just hold on—You’re okay,” Sam said again, breathless.

_You’re a liar._

A loud pop, and the rain of a plastic casing overhead and suddenly everything went dark again in the cabin. The pain slithered out of Dean as quickly as it had bloomed and left him a shaking mess. He tasted the hot air, and it came on with burnt plastic overtones. He filled his lungs with it anyway, because he had no other choice— he had a million things to ask, and a million more to say, but only the air would come. 

Time filtered back in like sieved water and he cracked his eyes. Sam smiled down at him. “Welcome home,” he hummed. Above him, the recessed garage lighting poured yellow light onto the stored classic cars. The shadows were nearly absent here, and after where they’d just been, there was some kind of bittersweet aftertaste to that.

_Home._

“What the hell was that?” Dean managed weakly. A weight— _Cas’ weight_ — suddenly slid off Dean’s side, and instinctually, Dean chased it. “What did you do?” he choked. He found Cas, fingers slipping through fresh blood. 

“He healed you,” Sam offered, but Dean knew better.

“No— Unless he’s jumpstarting’ hearts with fuckin’ battery acid these days, that ain’t what it was.” He struggled to his elbows, a headache lobbed his temples as he looked down his body. The bullet wound was gone. An ache of where it used to be was still whispering, but it was only a memory now. He wiped some blood away and was surprised to see the familiar, pinked outline of a handprint standing puffed in the middle of his chest.

His eyes shot to Cas; all bloody, dirty nearly six-foot of him, piled in the space between the seats. Totally wrecked and about six hours past done. The black blood from the Darkness still stained his skin, but that telltale ache of it seemed to be gone now. His eyes stood out bright, fixed on Dean. Wordless but telling secrets just the same, both hands at his chest, drools of blood curling down his arms.

Dean jammed up. “What did you just do?.”

“I healed you,” Cas parrotted, looked away. That familiar low-belly ache hit Dean again; it never left him alone long. The answer was right there in Cas’ face. Dean could see it because this time, he knew where to look; that little, disconnected angelic tic that always plagued Cas’ expressions was gone. Cas was all synced up. There was no process delay. No distracting angel radio ticking his attention north. There was only raw emotion left in the lines of his face. Dean combed him, hoping— _begging—_ that maybe he was wrong, but— _fuck._

“You’re human,” Dean said, just above a whisper.

Cas made the mistake of looking up, and his eyes chased Dean’s mouth. It wormed something so fucking desperate between them, it could’ve cracked the windows. “I did what I had to do,” he said. He balled his burned palm and shoved it into his stomach. _Out of sight, out of mind._

“You’re human!” Dean yelled. He washed hot. “What did you do? Where is your grace?”

“I gave it to you.”

“You gave it to me? Whadda you mean _you gave it to me_? You can’t do that—How can you do that? Take it back! How do you take it back?”

“It doesn’t come back, Dean… It’ll half-life and eventually dissipate from you. It’s not mine anymore. It’s gone.”

Dean shut his eyes. “Fuck,” he muttered, then, “Fuck!” He slapped the front seats, and when Cas flinched back, Dean put space between them quick. He backed out of the car, away, out into the garage. He pulled fingers through his hair, screamed and the jumpy echo fought back.

Sam grabbed him. “You don’t get to be mad at him, Dean!” but Dean shrugged him off, got a finger in his brother’s face.

“Stay out of it!”

“No! You don’t get to be mad about anything! It was your call that went bad. What did you want him to do? What did you expect? It's not new! None of this is new!”

“That's the problem!” Dean spat. “Maybe I want him to quit tryin’ to use all parts of the wingéd-buffalo to keep me on my fuckin’ feet!”

“Well, that was the last part,” Cas grumbled from inside the car. “The rest of me is already borrowed.”

Dean ducked into the doorframe again to scowl, only to have those bright blue eyes already poised back and ready for him. _Beaten and broken. Jammed between the seats like he’s stuffed between two worlds again. Always so out of place…_ But there was no regret in it.

“Don't you dare say that,” Dean growled, quiet. “You’re more than that damn vessel.” He crawled into the cabin again, and Cas tracked him, look on his face like he was expecting to get hit— like maybe he wanted to. Dean ripped the tee out from under Alice’s elbows instead and shoved it into Cas’ chest. Grabbed Cas’ hand and shoved that over it too before crawling back out. Dean couldn’t look at him. He paced away from the vehicle one more time before coming back again, leaning on and offering a hand only to have Cas stare at it.

“Get outta the car,” he mumbled. Maybe Cas didn’t understand, because that obstinate stare didn't falter. “Take my hand and get out of the goddamn car.”

“For what?”

“Because you’re bleeding.”

“And?”

Dean dropped a knee. “Are you tellin’ me I’ve got angel mojo to throw around now?”

“No, you can’t harness the—”

“Then get the fuck outta the car so I can patch you up!”

Cas bristled back. Dean snagged him by the arm and tugged him out a little too fast. Cas stumbled, uneasy. A wave of dizziness sending him spinning while the world stayed still. Sam fell in line beside them and caught Cas by the right elbow. “Easy,” he said as they dragged Cas to the interior door.

“Just cuz I do somethin’ stupid don’t mean you two gotta follow suit!” Dean balked.

Sam shook his head, unruly hair in his face once again. “Is this, like, a new rule, or—”

“Shut the hell up, Cyclops!”

Alice stayed, watched them. She made no move to get out of the car, and Dean was quick to forget about her; the dye job in the bra with the strange look on her face like she'd miscalculated something huge.

The door screeched on its hinges. Dean kept leverage on Cas’ arm as they descended. His knees were shaky, and Dean could feel it in his steps. Exhaustion and blood loss— _shock_ —weren’t gonna take long to get out of control. Dean preferred to avoid them entirely if he could. The ash crammed into their tread was shaking loose. It was making the grate treacherous. Sam slipped, grabbed the handrail just before taking a fall that would’ve dragged at least one more of them with.

They hit the war room, past the kitchen and into the library before Cas sagged, done. Dean had hoped to get the bathroom, but he wasn't gonna push it. He nodded to a chair and Sam pulled it with a heel as they dropped Cas in it unceremoniously and both split off again. Sam went to the kitchen while Dean hit the hall, down the three tier step, and into the first bathroom with the big cabinet under the sink. He pulled the medkit from beneath and the iodine and floss from the top shelves before he heel-toed it back out, stopping only for a moment at the presentation tray to nab an opened fifth of Wild Turkey too.

When he got back, Cas had a glass of water in his hands, and Dean could hear a bucket filling in the kitchen. He dropped his armload on the tabletop and popped the clasp on the kit. He set the gauze, the sewing needles, and the steri-strips out in a nice, neat line, ran his finger along the table in front of them and looked pointedly down at Cas. Cas’ attention fluttered from the table to Dean’s face and back again. “You act like I’m an emergency,” he contested.

“Ya stabbed yourself in the chest, what do you think?”

“Everything’s an emergency at the end of the world,” Sam offered, brushing past Dean and plopping the bucket down. Soapy water slopped out. “But you look pretty good. He does,” he added, to Dean. “It could be worse.”

Dean clapped his brother’s shoulder. “We got hot?” he asked. It was easier than a _thank you._

“Yeah, and now I’m gonna go drown myself in it, so don’t come looking.”

“Alice is a white rabbit, Sam.” Castiel didn’t look up as he spoke, his voice only came out as a tattered huff. “I meant to tell you.”

Sam shuffled to a stop. He looked back but didn’t speak. Dean shrugged, worked the cork off the whiskey, He watched his brother catalog the information and then quietly disappear down the hall. 

Then it was quiet.

In Dean’s imagination, there were parade floats and streamers. Confetti and cheering as far as the eye could see — At least, that’s what it was supposed to feel like. Except, it only felt like another held breath. Another moment between beats before everything got worse. Got darker.

It didn’t help that Cas’ eyes were nailed to the middle of the room where a phantom pile of books and Dean’s things still sat in the negative space, soaked in gasoline and blood. They hadn’t been there together since… 

_Maybe he could still feel it._ If Dean wasn’t careful, he could feel it too; the panic, fear. The hate that’d suffocated the edges of everything important to him and turned it gangrenous. The image of Cas discarded at the edge of that pile, wet with blood and begging Dean to stop, suddenly tore through him with no permission and he knocked the Wild Turkey back just to drown it. The whiskey flooded his mouth, down his chin. His eyes teared and he told himself it was just the burn, but he squeezed them shut anyway and took his time swallowing. He brushed fingers at his chest, and when he skirted Cas’ raised handprint scar, the bottle came back onto the table hard.

“I did what I had to bring you back,” Cas said again. 

Dean cracked an eye and took Cas in; just a bloody mess on the chair now, and realized he looked pretty much the same as the last time they were both in that room. Dirtier. Less clothed, but the same naked expression. The difference was, this time Dean knew what stopped him from killing Cas when the Mark had had a stronghold over him.

And this time he was stepping out of his own way. 

He dragged the bottle down the table as he strode toward Cas, and the warm, glass warble purred through the quiet. It pulled Cas’ eyes back to him. “Drink,” he said, tipping it to Cas’ lips before he had a chance to contest. The whiskey spilled over his chin just like it had Dean’s. Trailed his chest and down his stomach, like the blood crying out from under his _Wonderland_ compress under his fingers. Dean peeled the t-shirt away to get a look.

Cas had gone deep. Obviously deep into the muscle, but there was _hell all_ Dean could do about that right now. Internal sutures weren’t on the menu, no matter how well the floss treated ‘em. The top skin would close nicely, anyway—in a couple dozen stitches, and the muscle would heal in time.

He tipped the bottle again, poured it over Cas’ chest, and ignored the pained grimace he got in response. He thread the needle, _Newton’s white dental floss._ They could’ve knocked over an ER by now for some medical grade supplies, but if it ain’t broke, don't fix it, and the dental floss almost always held.

“You look like you did in Purgatory,” Dean said, tying a knot in the end and fishing the scissors from the tray. Cas kept his eyes away.

“Dirty,” he grunted. It wasn’t a question.

“No, worried.”

Cas glanced up, tentative soft. There might have been feelings-worms in the air, but it was still comfortable between them.

Dean dipped his hands into the bucket. The water licked up his wrist, onto his forearms. It left him clean as he fished the rag and wrung it out. He went to work. Washed the soot and blood from Cas’ wound, frowned at the crusted goop clinging to his neck and cleaned that off too. He fingered the chewed edges of skin. Cas tilted his head, let him see, but said nothing.

It was always a two-step shuffle between two of them, but they were rarely this in sync.

“Who’s been chewin’ on you?” Dean asked softly.

“Jerry. The man in the bar.”

Dean popped a lip, re-dipped the rag, watched the water run muddy. “You guys hit it off or—”

“He was the incarnate undead, Dean.”

“Never know where you’ll find love these days.”

Dean wasn’t expecting the shock-tart hit of blue he got for saying it. It burrowed in him, down to the pit of his stomach, clawing an angry message into his psyche on its way. It felt a whole lot like the grace-melt burn. Dean ignored it, took a knee and started in—e _asy does it—_ with some strong cross-stitches and a healthy dose of iodine. “I kinda suspected he’d kicked it,” he muttered. “He wasn’t exactly peak health.”

Cas grit through, grabbed the bottle off the table at one point and took a few more swallows. He didn’t have a poker face like Sam, but few people could compartmentalize the way Dean’s brother did. Besides, Cas was brand-baby-new again, he was allowed to react. Hell, it was nice to see him so bare.

“I ain’t wastin’ the gauze til after you shower,” Dean said finally, snipping off the last stitch. He tossed the scissors, grabbed the rag and dabbed the blood away one last time, checked his tension. It looked pretty damn good considering how tired he was, _considering how bad Cas should be in a hospital…_

Dean crawled back to his feet and wiped the rag over Cas’ mouth. The warm water took the ash away and pinked his skin. Dean took a taste right after it. Whiskey ripe on Cas’ breath, and lips a clammy kind of warm with enough shiver to make Dean wonder if he was in the right for taking the liberty. He pulled back to a pair of heavy eyes as Cas licked the doubt away just trying to grab another taste of Dean off his lips. His eyelashes tested the timid air between them. “I thought you were mad,” he muttered.

“Is that why you're worried?”

A tear ripped a track down Cas’ face, but he didn’t move to wipe it, he only frowned harder. 

Dean sighed, gave in, and took that away with the rag too. “I am mad, Cas. But, I ain’t mad at you. I’m mad at me. Seems like every time I fuck up, you draw the short straw just to pick up my slack. I keep tryin’ to fix it, but I keep makin’ it worse. So, what am I supposed to do? How’m I supposed to even begin to make things right?”

Cas blinked back wide, that familiar quizzical tilt falling into his expression again. “I’m not asking you to fix anything. We’ve both made mistakes.”

“Maybe.” Dean sunk to his knees again, looked up into Cas’ open face. “Maybe not. Cuz, thing is, I’m lost, man. I don’t know how to say thank you for everything you’ve done for me—an’ for Sam, anymore… I don’t know how to say I’m sorry. I just… I don’t got the words. I don’t know how to find ‘em.”

“I’m only trying to keep you here,” Cas whispered. His eyes flicked through Dean’s face. “I just want you here.”

“Okay,” Dean let the waterworks come, didn’t try to stop them. “I’m here. For what it’s worth, you called an’ I came back. An’ I didn’t come back to fight the Darkness, or hunt, or fuckin’ fix the world. I need you to know that. I need you to know I came back for you. The rest of it’s details. And… I know it’s not grace, an’ it sure as hell ain’t much, but I need you to know I love you.” He shrugged as his words cured in Cas’ face and drew tears. “That’s it,” his tone degraded as all the level ran out. “That’s all I got to give, Cas. That’s my _sorry_ , and my _thank you_ , but it’s not enough— I’m afraid it’s not enough.”

Cas grabbed Dean's face, hands shaking as he pulled him close and kissed him needy. “That’s everything,” he breathed, soft lips and fiery eyes. “I would do it all again—the good and the bad—if it got me back to this moment.” Dean huffed, fought a sob, and kissed him back. He ran hands over the rough whiskers on Cas’ face and felt the all-human shudder under his fingertips.

“Yeah, okay,” he breathed, smiled. Cas’ mouth tasted sweet, and even though it was dark outside and the world was a mess, Dean suddenly didn’t want to change a thing. He already had everything he needed. Fuck the rest of it. “We’re home, huh? You got me home.”

“Sam helped.” His fingers shuddered down Dean’s neck, fingernails dragging a flirty line, touch turning rushed, and tongue, following suit. All the _careful_ was suddenly bled out of him. A strangled noise wormed from his throat and it curled in Dean’s stomach. Dean gripped Cas’ jaw, crawled further into his space. All those needy breath sounds tipped toward depraved under Dean’s unguarded fingertip pressure. It sparked Dean’s nerves and pooled heat in his gut. He tried to shake the feeling off.

“No, you gotta rest—”

Cas chased him forward, nibbled his neck, hands sliding over Dean’s nipples and down his stomach. He tried to push Cas back into the chair. “Cas—you gotta rest—” he huffed, but Cas’ whine pitched to desperate. All his attention moved with a hot blue flick to Dean’s mouth, unsteady hands skirting Dean’s waist and brow crumpled. Cas tried to tame a dirty thought with teeth on his own lip, and Dean suddenly felt like he was trying to steal bread from the starving. He folded quick.

“ _Ah—fu_ —How can I say no to that, huh? I can’t say no to—”

Dean drove a hard kiss into him. He sloppily grabbed the rag from the bucket again and pet it over the unbitten side of Cas’ neck. The ash and black and blood on his skin ran out in rivulets down the dip of his sternum, soaking into the hem of his pants, crying off his sides and onto the floor. Dean chased the water with a needy lick, sucking a kiss into Cas’ skin and tasting whatever was left behind. _Sweat and dirt and fevery-hot skin._ Cas’ stubble burned against Dean’s cheek. His Adam’s apple wobbled under Dean’s lips. The moan that escaped him sent Dean’s heart into his eardrums.

“God I'm so hard for you,” Dean groused. “You don't even have to touch me and I'm there.” Cas rubbed a hurried hand down the front of Dean, felt him through his jeans.

“I want to taste you,” Cas pleaded. He reached, tugged Dean’s belt open, fingers slipping on the caked dirt.

“I haven’t showered—”

“I don’t care, I wanna taste you.” His voice pitched deeper and it rolled through Dean’s nerves like fine silk. His dick strained.

“Okay—” _fuck it_ “—yeah, okay.” Dean scrambled up from the floor, undid his fly, slipped his boots off and tried not to trip as he kicked his jeans to the floor. He tipped the bucket over himself as an afterthought and caught the cooling water through his chest and over his tilted pelvis, half-drowning Cas in the process. They both gasped. Dean rushed back in, bit Cas’ bottom lip and licked a drip of water from the curve of his jaw as he tugged Cas’ hips forward in the chair. Cas sprawled back into the slatted wood. Dean crawled over, straddled him, dick throbbing as Cas slipped hands up his thighs, burying fingers in the fleshy-give at his ass.

Cas sat forward, pulled Dean to in and nosed his dick, testing it with mouthy lips before he fanned that wide, pink tongue along the bottom and swallowed him up. Dean swooned around the hot velvet burst. He found an uneasy hold at the back of the chair as Cas curled his tongue along the top. Flicking a delicate, playful tip under the white-hot bundle of nerves, and then down his shaft and up again. Dean knotted fingers in Cas’ hair, didn’t realize he was moaning until Cas was pulling back to smile at it. “You like that,” he said.

“I like that,” Dean confirmed. He stooped down again, kissed Cas, took a bit of his own taste from his tongue, and _no,_ it wasn’t fresh, but _yes_ , it was still _really fucking good_ because it was the exclamation point at the end of a very depraved sentence. “I like that a lot.”

“What else do you like, Dean?”

“I like you—”

Cas urged Dean down as he rolled his hips and grazed his zipper along Dean’s balls. His tattered suit pants were wet. Dick standing the fly up as it strained in its cotton cage. Dean pulled Cas’ belt, zipper, slipped his crying dick free and pushed it through a tight fist. “I also like your dick—this is a very nice dick,” he whispered into Cas’ ear. “If you’re takin’ notes… ”

A side-smile crawled through Cas’ flushed face. He slipped hands down Dean’s sides and around the back, pet hot palms over Dean’s ass, kneaded him apart, fingered him gently. A nervous shock flit through Dean’s gut and he almost caught Cas’ hand, but that calm, milky tone stopped him. “Do you like that?” he asked. There was no innocence in it, and it lit a flush up through Dean’s chest and into his face. He felt the heat crawling.

Dean bent over for him, legs spread hum working out of his throat. He nibbled the answer into Cas’ collarbone when he couldn’t find the words. Cas watched him, licked a finger and suddenly worked it in. He curled it at the second knuckle and pet along a very fiery nerve. An involuntary moan coaxed from Dean’s toes. He rolled his head into Cas’.

“Is that a yes?” Cas asked, but again, he already knew the answer.

“God, yes. I want that—”

“You want what?”

“I want you to fuck me.”

“I want to,” Cas admitted, and it was the first time he sounded like he was maybe saying something wrong. Like he was suggesting something that had been rolling around his mind for so long it’d become a brass-dipped fantasy keepsake _._ So, Dean moaned, urged the idea with a roll of his hips. He welcomed the unruly squirm his stomach bloomed as Cas worked that finger and teased a second.

Dean pet a hand down him, fingers trailing through some warm-wet. Through his haze, he noticed a purpling bruise spreading over Cas’ skin, and for a moment he couldn’t figure out why it was there. Maybe it was from him, maybe it wasn’t really there at all. But when Dean tried to brush it off, his subconscious flicked on. He checked his fingers. The rosy-red tint of fresh blood colored the pads.

The knife wound was bleeding again. He looked, and— _yes—_ Cas had popped a stitch. _He isn’t a goddamn angel anymore and you’re pushin’ him—_ Or, rather, Dean was happily letting Cas do the pushing, and it was too much for right now.

Dean sat up but didn’t give the game away. He pulled out of Cas' fingers and nabbed the rag from the floor, plopped it against Cas’ stitches and pressed down as he kissed his neck. Cas grunted and Dean grabbed both their dicks in his hand, stroked them together. The precome slicked his palm and it brought the temp up in the room another twenty degrees

“I need you to come for me,” Dean begged. “God, I wanna see it.” He sat straight, held Cas’ heavy eyes, denied his kisses as he worked their blood-thick dicks. “I want it. You understand?”

Cas tipped a forehead into him and Dean rolled out of it, their bristly cheeks brushing together briefly before Dean grabbed his eyes again and held. “I fuckin’ love you,” he whispered. “I fuckin’ love you. Come for me so I can see it, Cas. I wanna see it. Please?”

Cas’ shoulders bounced with an uneven breath. He gasped, reckless, and came hard. Cheeks red and spunk splattering up Dean’s stomach. Onto his chest.

“That’s beautiful,” Dean blurted.

Maybe he’d been watching to make sure Cas was okay, but, the sight stripped Dean’s resolve faster than a professional grade bleach. The unruly heat and Dean’s restless nerves were quick to work against him, and he came right after. He chased Cas with a soft kiss. His lips were swollen, the skin at his mouth red. The skin at his neck bruised and splotchy. Dean wiped some of the sweat pooling at the well of his throat away.

“Just like that,” he said. “Perfect. You understand? An’ next time you come inside me.”

Those blue eyes came back up to Dean’s face and danced. He was exhausted, intrigued.

_He was perfect._

“Now you go to bed, and I ain’t askin’,” Dean said as he brushed the wet hair from Cas’ forehead. “Just lemme fix this stitch.”

“I love you, Dean.”

Dean smiled. “Oh, buddy. I know it.”


	17. Soft Light

SEVENTEEN

Soft Light

✣✣✣

Water buttoned the backside of the cloudy shower curtain in drops. Sam watched as they bloated and crept down the vinyl. The trails left in the condensation looked like shoestrings. He remembered thinking it because what he was really trying to do, was ignore the shadows behind them.

They’d started quiet enough—the shadows—just some chase-able dark in the corner of his eye. But now they were stretching. Splaying out like fingers at the ridge of the tub. _Breathe,_ he told himself. _There’s nothing there_. _Of course there’s nothing there. You’re in the bunker._ He turned the rag on himself and scrubbed. The ash and blood muddied the suds and swallowed into the copper grate at his feet. The dirt was washing away, but he wasn’t getting cleaner—

_It’s already inside you, Sam_

—His heart picked up, and he shook the thought away. Scrubbed harder. He felt something in his skin, deep; spilled ink soaked into his seams. It was traveling. Going deeper. In his muscles, his bones. That crawling burn at his temples. “No, you’re okay,” he told himself out loud. His voice pitched off the walls hollow. “You’re in the bunker. You made it. Nothing can get in. You’re safe. Nothing’s wrong with you.”

The dark fingers behind the curtain swayed in the light, pulled up, then down again, nestled along the ridge of the tub like tree branches— _fake tree branches_. _Imagined tree branches_ —till they knocked into the porcelain and made an actual sound. Sam jumped, hit the back wall and squeezed his eyes shut. “N-no. You can’t get in. You’re not here. You’re in my head—”

_Saaaam_

The shadow heaved at the barrier, breathed and grew. A blob of a head ballooned and then melted back into the formless shape— _Eyes. Red eyes_ —Sam grabbed the curtain and yanked it back. The bathroom was lit bright, a couple trusty spiraled incandescent lights buzzing happily above the mirror. The generator was plugging along as it was meant to. On top of the toilet, a lonely pile of clothes, and his shaving bag to finish it off. No shadows. 

He shuffled and waited, but, the feeling wouldn’t leave. It was that same shiver that’d followed him at the warehouse. Out of the garage. Down the stairs. Into the bathroom. It’d been easy to ignore it when he’d had Cas hanging on at the end of his arm and Dean screaming at everyone in an attempt to keep his own nerves level. But that was when blood clotted the air about as thick as the mist did, and every idea of _what’s next_ was about as abstract as building a viable plan on a suspended breath was, but now, now, there was only the water.

And cold— _Cold like cadaver blood—should be warm. Gotta kill ‘em_ — A lick of water from the curtain suddenly curled down Sam’s wrist. He shook a pervasive bastard-of-a-thought from his mind like a wet dog and let the curtain loose. Hair stuck to his forehead in strings as he stared.

The water turned to blood, started oozing down the cloudy white.

_Kill ‘em, Sam_

It dribbled past the tub rim. Soaked into the rug. Started a pool on the floor. Sam’s temples throbbed. He blinked, slow, and an urge overtook him. He poked the vinyl curiously. Took the red between his fingers and rolled it. Stared at the line he left behind.

_Kill ‘em_

He swallowed cotton, puffed “No,” but the idea settled in his chest and weighed him down anyway. There were no shadows—Sam could see there weren’t—but they were still there. They were inside him. They were calling. He heard it in the hum of the showerhead. In the unsteady throb on his heart.

_Everybody dies this time_

He covered his ears, shrunk into the basin. “No!”

_Saaaaam_

“There’s one toilet, one sink, one pile of clothes—”

———

“Yo, Sam!”

Sam came to at the library table with a mess of books and papers strewn around him, Dean staring from the doorway with his face screwed tight. “I’ve been talking to you for five minutes,” he griped. “You going full _Beautiful Mind_ on me or something?” Sam checked the corners, and a shadow chased from the room. “Sam!”

“Yeah—” Sam swallowed the mothball taste, blinked. He remembered the shower, remembered Dean and Cas before he’d hit it—didn’t remember this; the library, the books. Only, he must’ve been there a while because it was wrecked—not from buckets of water, or ashy footprints like when he’d seen it last, but instead, the shelves were pecked thin. Full tower stacks of books sitting on the edges of both tables. Lamps askew and lampshades off, bulbs blaring. Sam’s laptop was on, and cursor blinking on an errored webpage. _No internet connection_. _Run diagnostics._ He frowned at it. He didn't need to run a diagnostic check… He already knew the internet was down the same way he knew the CB wasn’t catching anything but static. The problem was, he couldn’t actually remember testing either one of them. _No TV, no radio—_ “World’s gone,” he muttered to himself.

“Jesus—” Dean huffed and was suddenly beside him at the table, face in Sam’s. “Look at me—”

Sam snapped back again, shook him off. “Stop—”

“Hold still—”

“Dean, I’m fine—”

“You’re not looking at me—”

“Stop touching me!”

It was too loud. It pitched off the corners and rang in Sam’s ears, but it stopped Dean in his tracks. He shied back and that worried expression burned into Sam’s face like hot coals. “Fine,” he relented. “You’re obviously fine. I mean, ya look… just great.” He slumped into a chair beside Sam, shook his head as he half-heartedly eyed his way through the paperwork pile. He was tired—beyond it. It was written in his face; the tight, drawn lines. Whatever shower he’d managed to sneak in had slipped some color back into it, but he wasn’t even close to normal. Still too thin. Still bogged with worry. 

Sam took a breath, ran hands through his fluff-dry hair and tried again, calmer. “I’m fine, seriously. I was just… thinking. Researching. I… didn’t hear you. That’s all.”

“I can’t keep this up, man.” Dean shrugged and planted elbows on the table top. He stretched out and buried his face in his arms, uncovered a notebook as he did. Sam glanced at it—did a double take when the writing caught his eye. _Sam’s writing_ —only, Sam didn’t remember drafting it. The scribbles of words over the page were illogical and unorganized, the paper torn and frayed _—the writings of a madman—_

He stiffened, grabbed it quick and flipped it top-side down before it had a chance to catch his brother’s eye.

“It ain’t even just that,” Dean mumbled in his arms. “The shadows are literally knockin’ at the windows right now, and they’ve got Soylent Green on the menu. There’s some girl we don’t know— _don’t trust_ —wandering around our bunker by herself, and you? You’re sittin’ in the library running Trance’s greatest hits through your white-matter so fucking loud you can’t hear me calling from the hall. So let’s top off the crap sundae with a cherry because I’ve got my fill.”

“This is about Cas.” 

Dean looked up with an expression that sucked the energy out of the room. “What about him?”

“You’re worried, is all I mean. It’s the other stuff too, but, really… ” Sam squinted, “it’s Cas.”

“Well, he stabbed himself a couple hours ago, if you recall. I’m mad good at sutures, man, but I ain’t no angel.”

“And neither is he. Which is the problem, Isn’t it?”

Dean squeezed his eyes shut, sighed, tried to beat back whatever emotion had stirred up. “Idiot,” he muttered to the table.

“He could’ve gone through his throat, Dean. He didn’t.”

“Yeah. Good thing it wasn’t still someplace important, like, in his chest, or something. Or, good thing there’s no chance for him to get an infection from all the black shit that was all over him when he did it. Or, you know what? It’s totally fine, cuz if he did, we could just shuttle him over to the nearest hospital, easy as pie.”

“I know you’re mad. He gave you something special—”

“Oh no. Do not turn this into a virginity joke.”

“No, I’m not! I’m just saying, I understand, and, for the record… it’s, uh, good.”

Dean sat straight again and suddenly sized Sam up. He scrubbed his jaw, silently decided something and dragged the papers beneath him back into a neat stack. “You, uh, tackle these yet?” he asked, gesturing to the tower of books at the end of the table. “Cuz I’ll take ‘em. Gimme a little light reading for the night. You can’t read the whole damn library by yourself.”

Sam looked over, frowned, “I don’t—”

“We even know what we’re looking for here?”

Sam sat back, scratched his head. “I mean, references to Darkness, I guess, but—”

“Got it. Darkness, dark, bad, evil. No big deal—

_Darkness = Bad = Evil_

“—probably only a couple things like that are gonna show up in these texts.” He scooped them under his arm, pushed the chair out and plodded toward the hall.

“Dean, I’m trying to tell you it’s good—that I… I think you and Cas are—”

“What?”

“Good.”

“You don’t think that,” he said. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Sam shut up tight, lost Dean’s eye line. Dean was right, he’d never been a very good bluffer—not to Dean anyway—but he was starting to feel like he was pulling one over on himself. Because, there wasn’t anything wrong with it— _Dean being with Cas was good—_ except it wasn’t. Except everything about the two of them was setting off all of Sam’s red, upstairs alarms and he couldn’t explain why— C _ouldn’t even explain it to himself._

Dean shook his head, let Sam’s embarrassment settle into the quiet beat between conversation. “See?” he pressed. “You can’t lie, Sammy. Only, I can’t figure out why you’re being such a dick about it. I mean… Doesn’t fit.”

Sam sucked an uneven breath. “It’s good in principle,” he said slowly, “it’s just the timing—”

“Fuck you.”

“—It’s just the timing that’s strange!”

“How? No, you know what? I don’t care, Sam. The timing is the timing. Cas feels like the happy at the end of a very long tunnel of shit to me, an’—”

_Cas is the light_

Sam shocked still.

_“—_ I need it. I want it. It’s got nothing to do with anything else, and maybe that should be good enough for you. I said it once already, and I’ll say it again: it doesn’t matter what you think. It is what it is. Do us both a favor and get over it.”

Sam grabbed the notebook, remembered writing _something— Something that seemed really goddamn important now_ , even if he couldn’t place how or why. “The part about the light,” he mumbled.

“What?” Sam flipped through the pages, squinted at the rambling script. “Sam…” Dean sounded exasperated now—Sam ignored him, zeroed in on a legible thought under the mad ones: _Light = Good_. He pegged it with his finger, tapped the page.

“That’s the one.”

“Are you hearin’ me?”

_Cas is the light. Cas is Dean’s light_ — _light at the end of the tunnel._ He quickly scribbled the _good_ out, wrote _love_ in its place: _Light = Love,_ and stared at it.

“Sam!”

Sam looked up, leveled to Dean’s razor-sharp stare. “Yeah. You’re in love with Cas. I’m supposed to be okay with it, but I’m not because it’s strange, Dean. Did you ever find Alice?”

Dean’s mouth went thin, a little slink of hurt running it flat. Sam chased it through his face like he did the shadows hiding at Dean’s heel— _Dean never notices the shadows_ —and Dean wobbled uneasy. He fixed the books under the crook of his arm as he turned. “Yeah, okay. Whatever.”

“Wait, did you ever find Alice?”

“‘Night, Sam.”

“It’s important—!”

Dean shook his head, hopped the step into the hall, and the quiet went out with him. The lights flickered, the corners thickened. Sam’s heart picked up another step. It was playing in 2/4 behind his ears. “I need the white rabbit… ” he mumbled to the dark.

——— 

He found her in the garage stretched out on the hood of the ‘54 Chevy. The room smelled like carnations, and he wasn’t surprised. She didn’t get up, didn’t look his way. The shadows poked the back of his brain, and he scratched to stop them. “I know what you are,” he said, throat hoarse. 

She closed her eyes, breathed. Let the accusation roll through her like a deep rumble before slipping off the hood. She looked softly through Sam before plucking a curl of hair from his face. “Attaboy, Sam,” she said. “I knew you would. Can you do me a favor?”


	18. One Breath

EIGHTEEN

One Breath

✣✣✣

The turn of the vellum pages woke Castiel from what was otherwise a soundless sleep. _Dreamless_ was one way to describe it, but it felt more like time travel. He remembered the bathroom before the bed. The shower after the stitches and sex. He remembered the feeling in his chest as he perched on the tub ledge, water beating against his legs as he watched Dean slip past into the jet stream. He especially remembered the sinful noise Dean had made as he arched into the water, and all that caked dirt ran off of him leaving nothing but healthy color behind. 

Cas remembered thinking life was strange. The notion that a couple of perfectly formed ideas were like keys the way they could open a person up—the way they’d opened Dean up… One moment, the two of them were only friends, and there were boundaries to respect—the next, all bets were off. Kissing and touching were fair game—dirty thoughts encouraged and shared. Opportunities presented that were more personal and priceless than anything Cas could have wagered before now; like watching Dean shower. Giving him pleasure… Love… This was what it was like behind Dean’s walls. The colors were rosier here. The air, sweeter. The literal and figurative nakedness of him was beautiful. The opportunity wasn’t lost on Castiel.

Then, he remembered hitting the bed. Dean had tucked up next to him on the mattress, slung an arm over Cas’ stomach, and sighed a contented noise into the side of his neck. There was nothing after that. It’d been _lights out._ Cas’ body was spent. The pillow was warm, and everything smelled like Dean. Notes of his woody aftershave and the feel of his sticky-clean skin lulled Cas unconscious like the flip of a switch. 

Now, he cracked an eye and found Dean beside the bed, heels kicked up, and wood peg-leg chair balanced on its back two feet. A stack of books kept company beside him on the nightstand, with the exception of the one in his lap. The circles under Dean’s eyes had grown considerably since the shower, and he’d shed the comfy robe and boxers for clothes again: black t-shirt and fresh pair of jeans. The only part of him not battle-ready were his socked feet. 

Cas frowned, pushed the blankets down to get a better look, and one of Dean’s eyebrows arched. He licked his thumb, turned a page. “ _Distrust as it never was yet on earth, distrust of anything and everything,”_ he read aloud without looking up. His voice was groggy. _“This is the only road to truth. The right eye must not trust the left eye, and for some time light must be called darkness: this is the path that you must tread_.” He snapped the book shut and tossed it, scrubbed his eyes. “Really enthralling lemme tell you, but I think Nietzsche's givin’ me a few more headaches than answers.”

“You didn’t sleep,” Cas parsed. “I thought you’d slept.”

“Naw, I found something _so much better_ to do.”

“You need to sleep, Dean. You look terrible.”

“Yeah—enough about me, Casanova. How’re you doin’? You were out cold there for at least a couple hours.” He checked his watch, and when he realized he wasn’t wearing it, he tried to recover by running his hand through his fluff of showered hair.

Cas shifted under the covers and his body hissed back. He was sore; that was the short answer. He hurt, and he was thirsty, and he was still very tired even though—or maybe because—he’d slept so hard, but Dean didn’t need to know any of that.

“I’m alright,” he said. He kicked a chin after saying it as if a strong jawline was going to be the punctuation needed to convince Dean it was true. It seemed to have the opposite effect. 

Dean tipped his chair forward and peeled up with a grunt, stretching his back as he got on his feet. He plopped at the edge of the bed and pulled the comforter down to see Cas. It was nothing but a mile of bruised flesh after that, ending at the pair of boxers Dean had lent him; white and red with a big cartoon cheeseburger over the front. _Eat Me_ written in repeat across the waistband. 

The knife wound had bled through the gauze and was crying out past the tape. Big, purple bruises spreading from Cas’ shoulder and curling down his pec. Halfway through his ribs. Dean made mental note of it with a tight neck and a pained swallow. There was some blood on the top sheet by his fingers, but Cas decided not to mention it. 

“I’m _fine_ ,” Cas said again. “I feel good. I suppose it looks worse than it is.” 

Dean’s mouth went into a thin line. “Yeah, let’s see it before we break out the champagne and condoms,” he muttered. He rustled through the medkit on the table beside them and pulled a skinny roll of gauze out. Set it on the bed between Cas’ legs, and folded a knee up to face Cas straight. He picked at the medical tape sticking the old bandage to Cas’ skin. It didn’t give easy, but Dean was gentle with it. He tossed it into wastebasket once he got it loose, and worked a heavy frown. 

The sutures were holding this time at least, unlike the night before, but, the skin around them was inflamed. Cas could feel the heat coming off of it without poking; cherry tomato red on the outskirts and white where the stitches held the skin together. Blood swelled from the center of the wound and seeped down the cleft of his chest. 

Dean swore under his breath. 

“It’s fine—”

“It’s not. An’ will you do me a favor and quit bleeding?” he grunted. He balled the fresh gauze and shoved it up against Cas hard, let the pressure up a bit when Cas yelped and grabbed him back surprised. Dean’s eyes darted away. “Sorry,” he mumbled. 

“Do you want me to hold it?”

“No, I got it.”

“I can help, Dean.”

“I said I got it. Just relax. You nursemaid me. I nursemaid you. ‘S how it works.”

Cas dropped his hand, watched him. Dean’s eyes stayed away, squeezed shut, and fluttered open again on the heels of a heavy sigh. He was somewhere else. “What’s the matter?” Cas asked, and Dean faked some surprise.

“You mean aside from this?”

“Yes. Aside from this.”

“Nothin’. It’s mostly the stab wound thing, believe it or not.”

“I don’t.”

“This is kinda a big deal. You get that, right? If there was such a thing as a good stab wound—this ain’t it.”

“I understand, but that’s not what you’re worried about.” 

“The hell it’s not.” 

“ _I mean_... I can see something else is wrong. I’m already basically stuck in this bed, Dean— _useless_ , please don’t shut me out too.” 

He slipped a hand down Dean’s arm, stroked the underside of his wrist, and Dean relented to it. Rubbed his eyes again before dragging a sad expression up to meet. “Sam’s being a dick,” he said. “He’s not really… _on board_ , so to speak. I can’t tell if he’s just pissed, or tired, or if he really hates the idea that bad. I tried to talk to him—a couple times, but he was all over the place. I… I don’t know. I ended up lettin’ it go. I didn’t feel like arguing.”

The words hit Cas in a wave. His chest went tight and all the sudden, everything hurt a whole helluva lot more. Blood shot to his temples in a headachy surge, and his skin went fevery hot. He stumbled over a couple of thoughts before he managed to form a decent one, and, admittedly, it didn’t come out very smooth. “W-What did he, uh, say?”

“He said it was weird—you an’ me—like, twenty _excessive fucking times_. He wouldn’t look at me, he quit payin’ attention part way through, and then he just changed the subject.”

“What does that mean?”

“I dunno…” Dean trailed, chewed his bottom lip, turned the gauze over in his hand and chased a new dribble of blood. “Means he’s just not ready to jump on the good ship _Deastiel_ —or whatever. Is what it is.” 

—This was the part where Cas was supposed to notice that he was about to cry before anything worked its way up his throat, but the grace was gone, and his face was wet before he had a chance to buffer it. “I, uh… I understand… ” he said, because he had to say something. “It’s okay.”

Dean shrugged and then his eyes snapped up quick, tangled in Cas’ face. “Wai—you understand what?”

“That Sam’s uncomfortable, and you… don’t want to… do this.”

“What—no. Shut up! I was just tellin’ you cuz you asked! I’m not lookin’ for an excuse to bail. That’s not what this conversation is. Quit tryin’ to poke holes where there aren’t any. It’s already a goddamn sieve, man!” 

Dean chucked the bloody ball of gauze into the garbage, and it hit with a thud. He hastily cut a fresh square. Ripped a new strip of tape, and chucked the scissors onto the desktop after. He glared at Cas’ chest. Waited to see it bleed. Chewed his cheeks. “Look at that, you finally quit,” he muttered after a minute. “Wasn’t so hard, was it? Now how ‘bout you stay stopped this time.” He splashed a new helping of iodine and pressed the fresh bandage down as Cas struggled against another wave of salty tears. 

Maybe it was Dean’s tone. Or maybe humanity really was that hard to slide in to, but all Cas wanted to do was cry, and the more he fought it, the harder it was to keep the tears down. A few slipped. He muscled the rest back with a jerky breath that woke the pain in his ribs up. Dean noticed him flinch, and the pinch in his face went soft. 

“Stop it,” he huffed. He flicked a tear from Cas’ cheek. “Sam’ll come around. Don’t waste your energy worrying about it. We got better things to do.”

“And what if he doesn’t?”

Dean shrugged, took his time taping the edges of the bandage down, then sat back and admired it; _neat and clean_. “Then he doesn’t,” he said resolutely. “It doesn’t change anything.” He leaned in and buried a kiss in Cas’ collarbone. “Now don’t look so surprised. You’re makin’ me feel bad.”

“I just didn’t—” _I don’t expect Dean to choose me over his brother “—_ expect…”

“I know. But, I wanna do it right this time.” He feathered warm fingers down Cas’ sides, whispered lips up the curve of his neck. “I wanna do _you_ right.” 

Cas turned into his touch, caught Dean as he unburied himself from Cas’ skin, and absorbed the shiver of energy he was dragging. Their noses brushed, and Dean tested a timid kiss on Cas’ mouth. _Feathery like his touch_. 

Cas took it easy, dug fingers in Dean’s jaw and pulled him in, let the stubble sting his fingertips. “You mean _do right by me_ …” he breathed back.

“Yeah.” Dean nodded, burned him with that candy-apple green. “That too,” and he cocked an eyebrow. A mischievous smile cracking through his face. It was at home there. Cas had seen it a thousand times, but this was the first time it was talking to him. 

Dean got up, flipped a knee to the other side of Cas, and straddled him in the bed. He landed another light kiss at Cas’ lips before sinking down, and burying one into his neck, tongue wet and lips hot. His hands moved lightly over the bruises and swelling, a warmth in them that begged, at the least. Cas hummed a deep noise, and it spurred a mimicked sound from Dean in return. 

“God, you taste good,” Dean muttered to Cas’ skin. “I don’t know why you taste so good.”

Cas had something to say about increased oxytocin and endorphin release at the back of his brain, but Dean’s mouth knocked it away before it ever had a chance of hatching. All Cas had were the noises. Those deep, basal sounds that were telling Dean everything he needed to hear. “I could come just listenin’ to you enjoy yourself, you know that? You’ve got all the good buttons. What’s your favorite, Cas? Is it your neck?” 

He kissed Cas there, dragged a hint of teeth, and licked a wet mark. Cas curled fingers at the back of Dean’s scalp, nodded, thoughts dreamy. Dean smiled, shook his head. “Naw…” he said. “How ‘bout your collarbone? Is it your collarbone?”

He swung down, brushed a soft line with his lips and sighed a flirty breath into Cas’ skin. He avoided the bruises, the hurt shoulder. Cas huffed with the goosebumps and pulled fingers over the spread of Dean’s shoulders. He hummed again. “That one’s good too,” Dean muttered, “but we’re not there yet. 

“How ‘bout your chest, Cas?”

Dean moved further still, brought his hands down Cas’ sides and up his stomach in a light swipe. Somehow, in all his effort to avoid the thing he’d named, he’d managed to pull all of Cas’ attention straight to it; to the touch that was missing. So, it was a relief when Dean finally graced Cas’ chest with a kiss. Dragging that same light-lipped touch to a nipple and mouthing him there till both it— _and he_ —were hard. 

“Mmmm, there it is,” Dean encouraged. “Just like that. That’s the spot.” 

He stretched up and over Cas again, kissed him, messy, and stroked the swell of Cas’ dick with a heavy hand. Cas finally pulled a word from his swimming brain—Dean’s name—and moaned it. What he got in return was a perfect, dirty sound that went straight to his gut in a rush of butterflies. It trilled in Cas’ hips, made his heart wobbly. 

Dean sat back, stripped his shirt off in one easy pull, and tossed it to the floor. He came back to Cas, skin hot, and a fresh flush lighting his cheeks up. Cas opened wide for him, tasted all that stingy stubble and spicy aftershave as he stole his own nibble of the untouched corner of Dean’s jaw. He ran hands up Dean’s body, caught sticky on the raised handprint there— 

_Yours come in blood, little fish_

_—_ and his breath stuttered. He blinked at the lost thought. “My hand—” 

Dean grabbed him by the wrist and sat tall. “Just gives you somewhere to aim when I’m ridin’ you,” he cooed, shoving Cas’ hand into the mark. The grace in Dean suddenly prickled at the edges of Cas’ fingertips, called up by his touch, but before either of them had a chance to comment, Dean squared himself and ground into Cas heavy. The friction curled pleasure in the pit of Cas’ gut and the evasive thought went back out like flash burn. 

Cas clawed fingers into Dean’s pec, moaned. All he wanted was Dean’s jeans off. Wanted to feel skin on skin. Wanted to know what it was like inside him. He tugged at the Dean’s jeans and yelped when his shoulder barked back. Dean bowed over, caught Cas hands and buried a heavy kiss into him. “I know you want it,” he said, breathy, “but I’m hungry. How ‘bout you feed me instead?” 

Dean was up and off Cas again, tugging those cartoon burger boxers down before the pun clicked into place. 

_Eat Me Eat Me Eat Me_

Dean wrapped Cas’ dick in a tight fist, and as Cas looked down, he watched himself disappear into Dean’s mouth. The wet heat of it and velvet-feel took him. Cas’ breath jammed up his chest. He arched off the mattress and his ribs groaned, his chest burned— _didn’t matter._

Dean worked him. Tight lips and flexed tongue tip as he sucked off, and played the head of it. Trying his damndest to unknot the bundled nerves at the cleft. The heat in Cas’ gut stoked, and he buried fingers in Dean’s hair. Tried to get a hold on something solid, and a thoughtless roll of his hips suddenly spurred a choke from Dean. Cas stopped himself. “I’m sorry—” and Dean’s eyes flicked up. They caught Cas like a slap under that fan of dark lashes as he perked an eyebrow. It was as good as telling Cas he was okay— _it was okay_ —without having to break rhythm. 

Dean stretched a hot palm across Cas’ stomach, dug his fingertips into the fleshy give while his other fist slicked the spit all the way down Cas’ shaft and back up again. The heat in Cas’ gut billowed and then caught like brushfire. He came hard, moaned and gasped into the side of the pillow, eyes rolling back, and neck arching. Dean sucked up and off, spit and come stringing from his lips, and he crawled onto the bed again, buried a kiss in Cas’ stomach, breath hot. He laid his head down there, hugged Cas’ hips, and went quiet. 

Cas swallowed his heart back down, body humming. He combed fingers through Dean’s hair. “Thank you,” he said with a long, easy breath. “That was incredible.”

“Yeah. My pleasure.” Dean hummed, and his voice vibrated against Cas’ bare skin. 

“I get the joke now. On the boxers.”

Dean chuckled and it was warm. “I guess that means we gotta get more pairs with innuendo so I can explain those to you too.”

Cas smiled. “I’d like that. I’d like to return the favor, actually…”

“And you can bet your ass I’m gonna cash that IOU as soon as you’re well enough to fuck me up against that wall.”

Cas looked around, picked a wall with an indifferent flick of his wrist. “What? That wall?” 

“Yeah, the one over there.”

“We’d have to move the dresser.”

Dean smiled again. The flush on his face was telling Cas something. _Something new_. _Something private_. _Something only for Cas_. And maybe Dean was trying to hide it, staying flopped over on Cas’ stomach like he was, but it didn’t seem to be going away. It was making him heavy. It was sweeping that electric smile away and replacing it with something calmer. 

Cas brushed through his hair again, slowly. Patiently. “Are you alright, Dean?”

“Yeah. I’m good. I was just thinkin’... This is like the other night, back at the bar. I thought about this: you an’ me in my room, just… fucking off. Seemed like such a long shot at the time. But here we are… ” Dean gripped onto Cas’ sides, a little shudder racking his shoulders. 

“And?” Cas asked. Dean looked up, brow bunched. “Is it anything like you pictured?” Dean’s eyes fell away. He mulled the question over before planting another kiss into Cas’ belly and crawling up, plopping into the pillow beside Cas at the head of the bed. 

“It’s better,” he whispered. “Cuz this is real.” 

Those persistent tears welled up on Cas again, and this time he let them come—no point in fighting it. “You're gonna dry out if you don't put a stopper in that,” Dean muttered kissing away the stains they made on his cheeks. He took his time with it, breath warm and touch soft—s _afe._ Then _,_ he found Cas’ mouth again and buried the last kiss there.Spread that salty taste between them— _salty from the tears… salty from the sex_ —It was good. 

Dean sat back to take Cas in, that crooked smile screwed on again. Cas realized _this_ was Dean a whole different kind of naked, and it was all for Cas to have. He wasn’t sure exactly what to do with it, but it felt certain, and that was everything. He smiled back, soft, and Dean cut it off with a rushed peck. 

“Okay, food,” he chirped. He rolled off the side of the bed. He found his shirt and slipped it back on with the same fluid motion. “Real food, though. Not _soul food_.” He winked, and that smile cracked into a wider grin. “Feel like you can eat? Stay. I’ll make you something. Just stay.” 


	19. Squeeze

NINETEEN

Squeeze

✣✣✣

Dean beelined for the kitchen with big ideas and a stomach still spitting butterflies. He was gonna make bacon and eggs, pancakes and waffles. _Fucking french toast and orange juice and sliced watermelon, and he was gonna put a goddamn flower in the middle of the tray—_ if they even had a tray _—b_ ecause— _fuck it_ — _he felt amazing, and he’d do just about anything to keep that pleasure-spun look on Cas’ face_.

He threw the cabinet doors open, combed the shelves. Found an outdated can of black beans, some Rice a’ Roni. A quinoa/brown rice blend-boxed- _something_ —tossed it to the sink—and a half-eaten box of Rice Krispies. At the end of the counter, an unopened bag of veggie chips stared back at him like a fat, crumpled old man.

_Yeah… no,_ this wasn’t gonna do it.

He switched to the fridge instead, scoured the wire shelves, and when he found them just as barren, he stood back defeated. Unless a jug of outdated skim milk and a container of cottage cheese was gonna turn those veggie chips into a four-course meal, Dean was swinging at foul balls. 

Still, his stomach complained, so he shut the fridge and picked the chips from the end of the counter. Opened them up, popped a crisp in his mouth. They tasted about as good as he expected: _stale air. Not enough salt,_ and didn’t waste any time tossing them to the sink after the quinoa. “Christ, Sam. Did you do any grocery shopping while I was sidelined, or’d you finally totally lose it and start grazing on the wildflowers out front for nourishment?”

He’d said it, but it needed a minute to ring in his ears before it hit home: _There’s no food—but there’s no grocery stores either. No take out. No nothing._

He tensed, eyes sliding over the things he’d carelessly tossed away. This wasn’t just everything they had, it was everything they were gonna get… “Oh, no. Nonono, Sam—”

He turned heel quick, jumped up the steps to the hall at a jog. “Please tell me you’ve got a stash of army rations in your bunk,” he begged, “cuz the kitchen’s totally fucked for supp—” He cut the corner, and squealed to a stop at the sight of the empty library tables. “—lies. Sam?”

The lamps were turned on their sides, papers and books blanketing the tabletops. The stack that’d been towering in the corner was toppled over now; books on the table, books on the floor. Pages all around bent under opened spines. The chair where Sam last sat was pushed out wide. He’d gotten up in a hurry and never looked back. 

Dean backed up a step, leaned into the hallway and scanned it. _To the left. To the right. Both sides empty._ _Dark and quiet_. Worry woke up in his belly and it settled his attention back on the two messy tables. The notebook caught his eye. He remembered it from earlier. The disheveled pages and the haphazard way it’d been flipped over was so uncharacteristic of Sam, it’d drawn Dean’s attention even then. Even in the midst of their fight.

The walls suddenly felt like they had eyes fixed on Dean and his skin raised in a rash of goosebumps. His brain screamed for him to stop, but the damn notebook called to him, and he was reaching for it before he’d convinced himself not to. He flipped it up, and the sight spread that thick, sick feeling out. _Oh, hell…_

In that moment, Dean would’ve given anything to have just listened to his gut— _gone back to the kitchen, or back to the room_. _Back to Cas and the place where it finally felt like he had everything he needed and none of the other bullshit mattered. To never have left the fucking bed in the first place_ —but it was too late for that. 

He called for his brother, and the butterflies puffed out with his words.

———

Cas stared up at the ceiling listening to his heart kick around his ears for a good few moments before he let a jumpy breath out. The smell of Dean was everywhere, but the quiet he’d left behind was making Cas heavy on the mattress. He needed Dean on top of him again. Wanted to feel his weight. Listen to the purr of his breath as his lips pressed into Cas’ skin. He needed to see that dark fan of lashes flirting his direction as his hands took a walk for themselves, over Dean’s body this time. 

Really, what he needed was more of that expression; that honest, naked, slip-of-a-look Dean was wearing on his way out the door. It’d dug straight through Cas’ chest and planted roots. Flowers and shivers. A whole new set of feelings that were blooming from the center of him now and spreading out to his toes. This wasn’t grace, it was Dean, and the sticky-sweet difference between them was yards apart and it was about a million times better. If this was what happiness felt like, then Castiel was suddenly _sure_ they’d both be ten miles high for the rest of their lives--No more bottom-of-the-ocean slog, riptide pulling them backward, or sand in their eyes. 

A smile got away from him and he covered his face. Ignored the yelp of his shoulder as he forgot to baby it. He sucked a breath between his fingers and let it back out with an easy hum. 

_But, then again,_ he thought, _maybe not._ The vent kicked on and struggled, and he reminded himself where he was. _Still at the bottom of the ocean, as it were._

He took his hands away and was surprised at the sweat on his fingertips. Blinked at it, squinted. Hadn’t realized he was sweating, or that the room had drawn such a chill. Hadn’t realized his eyeballs felt hot, or that his fingers were racking such an obvious shiver.

_It’s just nerves,_ he told himself as that excited trill sunk deep in his gut, back to the dark place where common sense laid. He eyed the glass of water beside him on the bed stand, shifting. _That’s what I need_ , he thought. _Just a bit of water and I’ll be good as new_. _I haven’t had any for a while and you’re supposed to have it often, Castiel. You’re human now._

He sat for it and the world tilted out of place, went spinning. His ribs shifted under the flex of his chest and he groaned, uneasy. He squeezed his eyes shut, buried his face in his hands, and begged the floor to steady him as he stretched long legs over the side of the bed, settled his bare feet flat. He breathed and thought about all the things beneath him. _The bed, the floor, the dungeon, the continental crust… the mantle… Hell… keep going, and eventually, you come back out the other side…_

He took a tentative sip. Another. The water was warm with a metallic chaser, but it slid down his throat easy, and it calmed the thrum at his temples to some degree. “I just need food, too,” he grumbled to his hands. If he said it out loud, his body would hear it, and when Dean came back through that door with an armful of _anything_ , the sick in his stomach would hide away, back where it came from. “Eat. Feel better. Be helpful.”

A checklist he could handle.

Something wet suddenly licked his wrist, and Cas opened his eyes, watched quietly as a red drip snaked down his forearm and plopped to the cotton sheet beside his thigh. It bloomed a bright flower where it landed _. Do me a favor and quit bleedin’—_ He swiped at the neat square of gauze on his chest, stared at the ruby smear it left on his palm.

He checked the door. Half expected to see Dean bust through it with a frown on his face deep enough to scar, and growling about how Cas couldn’t quit bleeding if he didn’t listen— _cooperate_.

But the door didn’t move. 

Castiel’s stomach did. It shifted with the burp of ventilated air. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have thought there was water coming in through the windows.

He measured an uneasy breath.

——— 

“Sammy?” 

Dean swallowed the heebies as he slipped into the garage’s twitchy yellow light. He finally found Sam tucked up against the wheel well of an old black Buick, smaller than Dean thought his brother could get. “I been lookin’ everywhere for you,” he said. “What’re you doin’ up here?”

Head down and arms crossed from elbow to elbow, Sam perked up at the sound of Dean’s voice, but his eyes didn’t follow. He was staring at something. Something small. Indiscernible, in the dark cleft between his tented thighs. He stretched, neck tall, and the back of his skull hit the chrome siding with a metallic thud. “Uh oh,” he whispered, mouth opening wide as his voice stirred out. “I figured it out.”

His eyes suddenly hit Dean like a pair of straight razors. They sliced right through him before resting eerily along Dean’s throat and slipping sideways across the front of it. That cloudy left eye was whiter now. It’d bleached in the shadows and it shined back like a milky pane of glass.

Dean moved forward but kept his space. Shadows stretched up from the edge of the hangar door in wispy tendrils, held low by the fluorescence. The garage air had gotten so damn soupy, it felt like it’d been on a slow simmer since they’d left it. Dean fought back a fleeting thought of suffocation. “Time to come back downstairs,” he said. “We’ll get some air. Some water—”

“You ever notice that Alice smells like flowers?”

“—some— What?”

“Alice. Flowers— Answer the riddle first— I need you to answer... the, uh…”

Dean shuffled. “Sam, you hearing me?”

Sam tossed his head like a dog shaking off rainwater. His focus failed, then lobbed high and hung at the edge of the ceiling. “It’s carnations, I think,” he said. “Alice’s smell… Everyone always thinks it’s roses because of Valentine’s day, or advertising, or whatever, but it’s not. It’s carnations. They’re the flower of love. Did you know that? You probably knew that.” 

Then the thought went slippery and skated back out. He trailed after it. Eyes bouncing through the room before finally settling back to the dark black crack between his thin thighs, and then disappearing altogether as his expression went blank. After a moment, that white eye ticked back up and pierced Dean fresh. 

“Oh, hey Dean,” he said simply. Like he was seeing Dean for the first time.

Dean squatted, slow. Careful. Touched his brother’s knee and felt how the heat radiated from him. “Hey, Sammy… So, remember the last time in the bar when you were two buns short of a bread basket—?”

Sam covered Dean’s hand with his own. “It’s him,” he said instead, just above a whisper. 

“You’re— It’s who? _What’s_ _who?_ ”

“I shut the warding down when I came up here. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get back in… You know, it’s not supposed to let the shadows in—but, now I’m afraid to go back down ‘cuz I know I’m dragging ‘em. You don’t see, but I am. Wait, can you see them?”

“Okay...” Dean swallowed, thought about bailing to regroup, but his brother’s wide face kept him glued. “There’s nothing in here, Sam…”

“I think there’s a reason you can’t seem them, but I don’t know… what.”

“How ‘bout we go get Cas, huh? The three of us’ll figure something out like we always do.”

Sam’s shoulders suddenly jumped, and he hit Dean’s hand away, shoved him back. He scuffled to his feet as Dean toppled backward off his heels. “You’re not listening!” he screamed. “This is all because of Cas!” Sam’s voice was acid against the walls. He buried his face in his hands, pressed his eyes. “I mean, of course, you loved him. It was the kinda thing a blind guy could see from a mile away, but that’s not the point. Point is, when we woke up after the car flipped, you didn’t even want to call him. You couldn’t even look at me when I said his name… You were ashamed, of what you’d done, or who you’d become— You had a right to be. You hurt him— _You hurt a lot of people, Dean_ … _You hurt me_... _”_

Sam stopped, hands coming down and face straining the idea like it’d been so buried under his skin, he’d shredded himself just to pull it out. The air wasn’t just thick between them it turned out. It was liquid. Fucking gasoline. And Sam was standing there holding a match. 

Dean got to his feet, a new batch of tears burning his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don't know how else to tell you I’m sorry.” What else could he say? Sam wasn’t wrong. Dean had fucked up at basically a subatomic level over the last year, and there hadn’t been enough words to fix it after the Mark went up in smoke, so he hadn’t even tried. 

Sam’s eyes fell away, squeezed shut, and the pause ate a hole in the air. “Two hours,” he said, hands sliding over his face again in a depleting, amphetamine-jumpy rush. 

Dean sighed. “What?”

“It took Dean Winchester with the Fort Knox walls, and The Angel With No Social Cues _two-fucking-hours_ to toss all their shit aside, and flip for who got to ride cowboy.”

“God, Sam, _really_? Fuck you. Why’re you being like this—?”

“No, you don’t understand— It’s cuz it’s crazy!” Sam spat. “Two hours is the time difference between you leaving me by the cars, and me showing up at the bar, When I came running through that door, you two had already hooked up! Think about that for a second!” 

Dean turned, went for the door with plans to get Cas and not a lot more when Sam grabbed him, stopped him. “Tell me how that happens,” he demanded. “After six years of the tango, please tell me how it’s possible to throw that much caution to the wind that quickly. I haven't been able to shift the _Careful_ between you two with a goddamn tow truck, for six years!” He fluttered fingers around his head, illustrated the statement with an explosive sound effect and wild eyes to match: _mind blown._

Dean stuttered surprised, blinked and tried to swallow the feelings creeping up, but they came out through his stiff jaw and salty tears anyway. He tried again to push past, but Sam held him. “Okay, what do you want from me?” he asked, bitter. “You want me to tell you I’m sorry it happened? I’m not. Once upon a time, that would’ve been good enough for you.” 

“There!” Sam said pointing. “Right there!” He rushed Dean with that erratic energy, stooped and grabbed his face, fingers soft and cradling. “I want you to listen to yourself— Because I can put all the fucking words together in a sentence, but you’re the one expressing intent— I want you to see why one plus one magically equals seven, Dean.”

Dean pulled out of his brother’s touch. “Sammy, you’re not good right now. Do you get that? I don’t know what the hell you’re even saying. This is a whole new level of babble, man.”

“Death told us that it took God to defeat the Darkness, remember? Remember?”

“Yeah—” Sam snatched Dean by the back of the neck. 

“ _Before creation there was darkness and God said let there be light and there was_ —” He plucked the air in front of Dean’s face like he was pulling the words from a page. 

“But, God’s not in right now—”

“You’re not looking at it right. See, because if God defeated the Darkness _with_ light, that means, the light was not _him,_ but something he created or used. It’s gotta be an equally strong, opposing force that could nullify the dark. Like with all things, there’s gotta be a Yin to the Yang: _Light versus Dark. Good versus Evil._ TheUnity of Opposites theory supports this idea.” He nodded excited, seemed to wait for Dean to pick up the logic, but when he didn’t, he blinked hard and continued anyway. 

“I’m saying, if the Darkness: the shadows—those monsters outside are that _pre-God evil manifest_ , then the Light must necessarily be able to manifest too!” 

Dean shook his head, huffed, and Sam’s fingers went stiff. “I’m talking about Alice,” he hissed. “What if Alice is _Light_ manifest? Specifically... What if she’s Love? What better to fight evil with than love? It’s poetic!”

Dean pulled from his grip again, dread growing in his gut in spikes. “You’re gone, Sam. Love ain’t a person. It’s a feeling, yeah--” 

“Don’t be stupid. This idea isn’t new, it’s all over the lore. Love’s gone by literally _dozens of names_ in the form of different deities throughout time. Plato’s _Symposium_ suggests that love isn’t a deity at all, but something called a great daemon. Ancient Greeks thought of daemon as guardian spirits who possessed the occult power to drive people toward desire.” 

Dean’s stomach sank as Sam smiled wildly, attention darting to the corner again, and snagging there. “She was, too, wasn’t she?” he asked. “A guardian, I mean. She’s protected Cas every step of the way. Think about it. She called you when Cas was in trouble, she stayed by his side the whole time, she helped him fight his way to us, she doted over him in the car while you were dying. She’s been beside him every goddamn second since we left that car wreck. Just stop lusting for _a second and think about it!_ ”

Dean tried to swallow the cottonmouth that was quickly taking him. “Even if she is… I mean, what for? Why Cas?”

“Because it’s the answer to the riddle.” Sam’s hands went up to his own face again and he spun nervously like he was tracking something. He suddenly moved to the far wall and flipped the switch by the banister. The garage went black, and Dean’s heart crawled into his throat. “Now,” Sam cooed from the corner. “How do you defeat the darkness, Dean?” 

Dean tried to swallow it, but the panic was in his ears now. “You turn on a light,” he whispered, and the lights flickered back on, surged and hemmed. The swelling dark at the edge of the hangar sunk down again, curling like liquid smoke. 

“That’s why one plus one suddenly equals seven.” Sam’s eyes were leveled on Dean now and burning holes where they sat. “I don’t know how she’s using him, or why it’s him--but I know. It’s him. He’s the key. You and Cas are the key.”

Dean let a held breath out. Stood frozen. Tried to convince himself that this was insane-- _all fucking insane--_ but he knew better than that. He watched as Sam backed away from him and collapsed against the car, exhausted. His head drew another metallic sound as he slid down to the concrete to rest, face in this hands one last time. “Do you get it now?” he asked the floor. “Do you understand, Dean? I’m not mad that you’re with Cas. I’m mad… that you can’t see _it’s a clue_.” 

Dean wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for till he saw the empty front seat and yawned Dodge door. “Sammy, where’s Alice?”

“I might be losing my fucking mind,” he muttered, “but this…” He trailed, looked at his fingers, then the space between his legs. “This, I know.”” 

“Sammy! Where’s Alice?”

Sam wiped the sweat from his brow, face pinching. “Oh... I already told you. I turned off the warding. She’s inside.” 

——— 

Castiel peeled the gauze back and took another look beneath it. Just like before, blood was seeping through the stitches and straight out of the saturated gauze with no regard for the work that’d gone into sewing it shut. He sifted through the first aid supplies in a panic. Once upon a time, he’d been handy with a pair of scissors and a roll of floss— _mostly._ Dean had taught him all the first aid basics, anyway, when he’d needed it most. But, it seemed _manual mending_ was a skill that’d gone out when his grace came back in because staring at the innards of the medical kit now was like he was staring at a map of the moon. He didn't know where he was at, or how to start—didn’t even know where he was going. He only knew that this was going to upset Dean, and, _God_ , he didn’t want that. The thought of watching Dean’s soft expression turn hard again churned his stomach.

He balled up a new handful of cotton and pressed it into his chest. His head went light as another wave of waxy nausea turned his cheeks to burners, and forced his ribs through a jumpy breath. The little bottle of Vicodin beside the water called to him, and that brought him immediately back to Dean, and the conversation they’d had the night before.“ _I’m tellin’ you, just take a couple, and you’ll be on cloud nine,”_ he’d said,like it was nothing, cocking that suggestive brow and shaking the bottle like a little maraca. And he’d said it with that white towel still clinging to his waist like a wet leaf—which had made a good case—but that hadn’t been the problem.

The problem was, Castiel knew drugs. Knew they were the fastest route to _useless_ , and that he was already toeing that line. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be completely out of the game, and no one could afford that. So, all he’d given Dean in response was an exhausted groan, and another thinly veiled excuse to touch his arm in the rouse of shoving it away. 

_Nothing different now from then_ , he reminded himself, eyeing the bottle. Even if the pain seemed to have crept up on him all at once like it had. But, maybe that was because pain was yet another thing that was easier to ignore when Dean was beside him. 

Blood dribbled past his fingers and down his stomach. He blinked, surprised. He hadn’t realized he’d zoned out. “Dammit,” he mumbled. He turned the gauze over in his hand, hurried and grabbed a fresh square, doubled it _,_ and pressed it hard. The stitches buckled under the pressure. He combed through the supplies again, and this time, pulled a roll of thin white medical tape out. He glared at it, and hastily ripped a piece off with his teeth. Slapped it onto the haphazard bundle. If the stitches weren't going to stop the bleeding, then the extra gauze and angry pressure would. He plastered another two generous pieces of tape to the pile, and when it held, he squinted at his reflection in the mirror on the far wall with a huff. 

A pallid face and sweat-slick skin looked back. A furrowed brow and dark eyes. He might as well have flashing neon letters above his head scrolling the word _FEVER_. That would be as obvious as his bloodstained hands were. It felt like his whole damn body was vying for attention to his demise. 

He growled and swallowed thick. Slipped off the mattress, intent on the dresser. He needed clothes. A shirt and pants--a cold washcloth on the back of his neck--if he was going to try to hide this, and he needed them quick. Before Dean came back. _Before Dean saw._

He stumbled as another wave of nausea grabbed him, and he steadied himself with the nightstand, knocked the water over. It splattered down the wood sides, drooled to the floor. A shadow moved in the corner of his eye and he chased it for a look, watched it fade out in speckles. He blinked hard. _It’s nothing,_ he told himself. _Just a trick of the eye_ , and shook it off.

The second drawer from the top was the one he needed. The top was underwear, he already knew that. That’s where Dean had pulled their clothes from earlier—after their shower when he’d still had that damn towel wrapped around his waist, and nothing but smiles and dew left to cover. He tugged the drawer open and found three rows of neatly folded t-shirts inside, all color-separated from black to gray to white, with a few printed ones in the mix. There were two brightly colored crewnecks on the very end: _a purple and a pink,_ and he fingered them. Tried to think of one time he’d seen Dean wear either, and came up short. _They would be such nice colors on him,_ he thought as he passed them by.

It was the faded black shirt on the corner that caught his eye and kept it hostage. Old, and rewashed, it had the smell of Dean so deep in the fabric it was practically woven into the thread. He unfolded it, smiled at the disintegrated lettering; _Led Zeppelin. Dean’s favorite._

He was suddenly, and brashly aware that he wasn’t going to be able to put the shirt back down. An unruly feeling ripped through his gut, ate the smile back up like acid reflux. He held it to his chest a moment before giving in and slipping it over his head— _Can’t put it down, might as well wear it._ He maneuvered his busted shoulder through the snare trap of an armhole and tugged it straight over his body. Looked down at the way it hugged his swollen chest. The color was dark enough to hide the blood, and that was the most he could ask, but he stretched the hem anyway, and the old cotton gave easy. It fanned loose over his belly with enough give to camouflage the ball of gauze.

The next drawer had rows of jeans. Castiel was checking a label for size when the bedroom door shrilled open, hinges screaming for a taste of WD-40 or a trip back in time fifty years. He spun around straight—too straight, winced a hand to his stomach as his ribs balked back. “Alice?” 

She slid into the room, closed the door quietly, and latched it before leaning uneasy onto the frame. She was still shirtless. Soot-caked bra, and tendriled lines of sweat down her stained skin. It made her up like a Pollock. “What are you doing? Why haven’t you showered?” 

“We need to talk,” she said, but her eyes didn’t leave the floor.

“This isn’t a very good time—”

“This is the only time.” 

Bile burned the back of his tongue as her eyes bumped up and danced in his face like a pair of flies chasing the smell of decay. He tried to stand tall, take that unsure hand away from his sore stomach. “This is about what happened in the car,” he said.

She shook her head, “No.” 

“This is about the knife, and the dark, and my bad decisions—”

“No, Castiel. “Είμαι ο Έρως.”

He snapped shut. The weight of those old, Greek words hit his fevered head fuzzy and sat like rocks at the end of a stretch of twine. _No, this was the other shoe. Finally dropping._ “Eros?” he said carefully. Then again, “Eros,” as the puzzle pieces slid together, jagged edges and all. Another wave of nausea threatened to bowl him over in a rush. The bout of speckles peppered his vision, and he strained to stay right in the new, muddy colors of the room. “You’re Eros?”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

“Castiel—”

“What’ve you done?”

The shadows dipped and curled as panic crept through his chest. He thought he heard his name shouted from the hall, but it came on as a wavy echo. He grabbed the dresser to keep from toppling, and she rushed to catch him. “There’s not enough time to—” He ripped his hand away, shoved her back, and watched her stumble, blink surprise. Her wide eyes narrowed. “I’m not here to fight you,” she muttered, but it sounded like a warning.

_It sounded like a threat._

He was dumb enough to make a move for the angel blade but realized a moment too late that he didn’t have one up his sleeve. She countered, swept his weight bearing foot, and he face-up on the floor with her straddling before the pain even had a chance to register. 

He coughed a pained breath as that hair of hers fell in her face again like it had a dozen fucking times before, but there was nothing endearing about it now. Not to Cas. Alice’s ruby red lips and gentle, sandwich board smile were tucked away now. “I don’t want to fight you,” she hissed again. “Don’t be this stupid.”

He didn’t say anything. Instead, he knocked her straight elbow out at the joint, twisted a leg around her middle and flipped her; Alice underneath and Castiel on top. His breath came out fast, body aching so hard at the movement that he was seeing stars. He got about half of Dean’s name out before she turned it on him one last time, twisting his wrist and robbing the momentum to snap Cas back into the concrete floor like he was nothing. This time, she dug fingers into his wound and didn’t stop twisting till he screamed. 

“Listen to me,” she growled. He grabbed her wrist, tried to pry her off, failed. Felt two stitches pop. Sweat crawled through the caked ash on her face and trailed clean lines to the tip of her nose. “You’ll stop, and you’ll listen to me, Castiel. Because now we are all out of fucking time.”

The room swayed around him. It was way too hot and his heart was way too fast. He clawed her wrist. “For what?” he finally rasped. 

“To save Dean, you idiot.”


	20. Zero Sum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WARNING*  
> You may not want to read this chapter in public

TWENTY

Zero Sum

✣✣✣

Dean sloughed the heat from the garage, Sam’s sticky fear. But not the dread; no, that was making a bowling ball in the pit of his stomach. He missed the first step on the way down and almost ate shit on the ones that followed, but recovered well enough to hit the bottom running. Through the war room and the library, papers flew off the table after him. He screamed Castiel’s name but got only his own echo back. Still, he trusted the panic would get him there.

He slid to a stop at the mouth of the hall, socked feet catching traction just before the cement drop step, and he doubled back, scrambling to the nearest table. He took a hit of polished wood floor to both knees as he dropped to see under the mahogany lip; stowed there in duct tape bonds, was a thirty-eight— loaded and ready for trouble. He freed it from its straight jacket, checked the clip, and took off again. “Castiel! Talk to me!” 

But, when he reached the room, the lock stuck. He shouldered it, “Cas?” and finally got his answer— 

“I just wanna talk, Dean.” 

—Problem was, Alice was the one giving it. His stomach ping-ponged and he peeled off the frame, fired two shots into the jamb. The wood splintered, spit at him in jagged sawdust spokes. The pop of it was so loud, it was enough to drown out the sound of his own reeling heart— _and that had to be good for something._

He shouldered it again and this time the door swung open, cracked against the wall and wobbled back. On the floor near the bed, Cas and Alice were a messy pile; Cas belly up and white enough to stain a fence, Alice straddling him. There was nothing sexy about it. She had fingers clawed in his stitches, and a jaw set so tight it looked like she was about to break teeth. 

Dean hauled her off, no finesse. Shoved her into the nearest wall where her back left an ashy smear. Some books tumbled from his shelf, the lamp flickered. When she tried to squirm away, Dean nailed her to the sheetrock with the muzzle of his pistol. “No, please,” he taunted. “Stay.”

Her hands came up, shoulders high and tight with a breath she didn’t dare let free. “I don’t want to fight,” she said quietly. But the bloodstain on her palm caught Dean’s eye and it churned a rush of bone-deep hate through him like a shiver; _Cas’ bloodstain._

“Oh, this ain’t a fight, sweetheart. You hurt my family, what you get is a funeral.”

“I understand you’re mad, but— ”

Dean cocked the pistol, finger ready on the trigger. “The hell gave you that idea?” 

“ —BUT you need to listen!” She paused again, took a breath of her own, eyes closed and fingers curling into her palms. She recalculated, cadence slowing. “How do we always get here?” she puffed. “And, besides, you still can’t kill me with that.”

It would’ve felt patronizing if it hadn’t been so raw. Still, Dean didn’t bite. “Yeah? Maybe not, but I bet blowing your brains all over the wall would buy me some time to figure out what will.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake— ” Her resolve crumbled, hands dropping to her sides. “Okay, this is why I locked the door, you battering ram!”

“And how’d that work out for you—?”

“Dean, stop.” Cas’ voice came at him in a stripped warble. A warning that snapped them both shut. Dean looked back, saw that he had managed to right himself; hand at his chest and still hunched forward like the pain was radiating. He’d gotten color back, but it was no more than a feverish flush. 

“You okay? What’d she do to you?”

“You need to listen,” was all he said, and it wasn’t what, _but how_ he said it that burrowed sick into Dean’s bones.

Dean dragged a careful look back to the large, dark eyes at the edge of his barrel. She had them leveled on Dean now, and they felt just as loaded as his pistol. “Yeah, we agree,” he growled. “We agree that this one needs to start talking— Only, you can cut to the chase, Alice. Sam already gave me the full spoiler sheet on you. So, what’s your game? You didn’t _just happen_ across our paths. Get chatty.”

A sudden sadness crawled through her face, it looked strange on her now, out of place. “The game is, you’ve got about twenty minutes before your boyfriend bleeds out, and this party wraps up,” she said bluntly.

Dean startled, blinked. “What?” He glanced back at Cas, an uneasy smile slipping out of him like his teeth had been greased. “No, Cas is fine. Cas, you’re fine.” But Cas didn’t meet his eye right away. He picked up the hem of his shirt instead, lifted to reveal the blood-slick down the front of him that the black tee had been hiding. If Dean even had feet anymore, they were numb to him now. He turned the feeling back on Alice, jammed the muzzle between her eyes. “—the hell did you do?” he rasped.

“I only made him listen,” she said softly. Calmly. “Because with or without me, he’s dying and he needs to know.”

“ _Know what?_ ”

“How to save you.”

Dean stilted, frowned. “What—? I ain’t the one in trouble here. Not any more than anyone else—”

“Oh, but you are,” she insisted. She gestured broadly to the room. “You pretend like you can’t feel it every time you go outside. Like it’s not that _THING_ radiating off your brother and cooking his brain from the inside out. But if you walk over to Castiel right now, I promise you, you’ll be able to smell it on his skin, and you’ll know it like the old enemy it is,” she whispered. “I’m talking about the Mark.” 

Dean’s back teeth tapped, muscle at his jaw working through a rush of unease. “Your intel’s off,” he bluffed. “That’s old news. Sam and Cas did a spell that got rid of it. This is just the other shoe.”

“Yeah, they did a spell, alright _— But, t_ hey didn’t get rid of it, Dean, they split it open! They spilled it! And it’s nothing but battery acid on bare skin to this world while it waits for you.” She pushed forward and Dean let her take the space. “That’s why the shadows don’t bother you…” she whispered. “Why the dark doesn’t affect you… It already owns you— You sold your soul to it! It doesn’t forget that just because you evicted it from your arm.” 

It felt like the air sucked out. Like there was nothing left to breathe. It all suddenly tasted like ash. Acid. Rot. He’d spent so much time being grateful that the Mark wasn’t humming in his brain anymore that it never occurred to him that the creatures running through the street were _familiar_ in that same nightmarish way as the thing that’d been stalking him for a year and a half now from his own appendage.

He dared a glance at Cas, and this time he found tentative eyes there. _Scared ones._

“Now, we wait, watching helplessly as it corrodes your world one person at a time until you can’t take it anymore,” she continued, pecking a couple fingers to the side of the muzzle and lightly forcing it away. He let her do that too, swaying back as she stepped closer still. “And then it’ll take you too… Once that happens, all this ends. The rest of us get spit out the other side of this hell, none the worse for wear. Everyone except you, Dean.”

Tears burned Dean’s eyes, but he swallowed them. “The hell happens to me?”

The frustration in her voice melted with her expression. Eyes wide and sad. “You become part of it,” she said. “Your fate is nothingness in a sea of evil at the end of some poor bastard’s arm.” She shook her head. “Your brother should’ve read the fine print before he opened the gates.” 

Dean tried to breathe— tried to remember how. The world wanted to tilt out from under him, turn upside down. He backed another step, and Cas wrapped a hand around his calf. It suddenly grounded him. “Then why are you here?” he managed. 

Alice closed her eyes, deep breath drawing her shoulders up. “Because, love,” she said, simply enough. She fixed the word on Dean, dark eyes swallowing the shadows. “It’s the most powerful force in the universe. Did you know that? It has the power to start wars. To change minds… To breed hope in the most helpless moments… And, it turns out, it happens to be the only thing bright enough to cleanse you from the shadows.”

“Love?” he repeated tentatively. His voice sounded alien to him. Heavy; weighed down by about ten years and a couple dumbbells. He couldn’t say it without seeing Cas’ face, and that meant he already had an idea where this was going; it was a trap door he’d give anything not to fall through. “All I need is love? That what you’re saying? So, Beatles lyrics are what’s gonna save me? Then let's go get the tape deck— ” 

Alice pointed, leveled a finger on Castiel, “Love,” she cooed again, and whether she meant it to or not, it stopped Dean short. She’d just proven Sam right, and Dean couldn’t decide if the sudden pang he felt was pride or horror. Either way, he wanted off the ride.

“We’re not doing this—”

“Did you never wonder why it hunts him? Why it affects him so profoundly more than everyone else—?”

“I thought it was cuz of his shiny personality.”

“You keep making your jokes while he stains your floor!”

“Then why don’t you quit monologuing and tell me how to fix it?” Dean snapped. “I don’t need the backstory. I need the answer!”

“You don’t _fix it_!” she spat. “You can’t fix this, Dean! How do you not get that yet? Castiel is _the only one_ who can _fix it. He is the answer you keep bumbling around looking for_!” 

Dean threw up his hands. “And how the hell does he do that? I clean him off the floor and send him out to go round four with the bête noire out there?” Tears bit his eyes, a breath shuddering through him as it all started to catch up. “I’m not gonna throw him away so you can pick someone else! How about you make use of that extra fucking car battery we got? That’ll work!”

Alice suddenly quieted, face falling. “I didn’t pick him,” she said, “you did. And Cas doesn’t die—” She reached to her waistband and plucked a dagger from the small of her back; a needled blade about four inches long with a gold handle rife with slippery filigree. It definitely wasn’t there before, Dean was sure of that. He’d have remembered something that looked like it had its own stocking number for the Indiana Jones storage locker. “—You do.”

He stared at it as she laid it out on both palms, held it up to him like a platter. He didn’t touch it, tried to swallow the cotton that was perpetually lining his mouth instead. “You want him to kill me,” he muttered, realization flushing hot through his chest.

“If he takes you, you don’t die out of hate, or spite, or fear,” she whispered. “There’s no jealousy or malice or revenge. You die in stark contrast to all those things. It’s the opposite of everything he’s ever wanted for you— _Wanted_ _with you._ Everything he’s ever hoped or dreamed or fought for; he does it only because he loves you, and it’s that selflessness that cleanses the shadows. It’s the power of a broken heart.”

Dean stepped back. “No.”

“I kept waiting for you to find another way—Winchesters are notorious for finding some fucking loophole— but… you’re not even close and Cas is all out of time! If he dies here, that’s it for you, Dean. Please understand, you were never gonna survive this,” she said. “It’s just a matter of where your soul goes now.”

Cas’ grip bit into Dean’s leg, and Dean suddenly bristled. “You’re a fucking liar.” His ears were ringing. His stomach felt so balled up, it was about to hatch and crawl out his throat. “Me dying ain’t gonna fix this. I already kicked the bucket once and nothing changed. You need receipts, go look in the back of that Dodge!”

“Yeah, you died, alright. And, I don’t know how, but Cas managed to pull you back and keep you human. But I bet you can still taste the ash…” She pushed forward, further into his space. “I bet you can still remember the feeling of the Darkness taking you over, cuz, the money says, if you’d been dead any longer, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.” 

Dean remembered it; the car. Coming back in with the pop of that overhead light. The sulfur taste coating the back of his throat and vapid nothingness that’d preceded it. He remembered how the burn of Cas’ grace felt like it was melting something dark inside him instead of simply seating his soul like it had a dozen times before. He let a shaky breath. The gun fell, arms now loose to his sides, and Alice pushed the rest of the way to him, nearly flush. She touched his chest, laced her fingers over the standing imprint Cas’ made under Dean’s shirt.

“This is why I’m here,” she whispered, “to harness it. _That’s the spell_ your brother and Castiel cast; this is the chance to save you they gambled on.”

The room was ringing. It was too loud now to be just in Dean’s head alone. Maybe it was cold or maybe it was too hot, but Dean knew there was no air in it. “You’re cruel,” he slipped, the salt in the back of his throat climbed. He worked his jaw, wanted desperately to step away from her, but her touch held his feet in place; like looking at a car accident as you pass, it magnetized. “You say love’s what cures it, then why don’t you do it? Doesn’t get much more literal than that—” He snatched the knife in her closed hand and jerked it up to his chest, she wobbled into with the force of his pull, let him manipulate her as she kept eyes glued to his face as he threaded the tip to his sternum.

“Dean—”

“Don’t do this to him,” Dean begged, ignoring Cas’ panicked cry. “He’ll never bounce back.” God help him, he wanted to peel the fucking expression off her face; she had no business looking as torn up as she did.

“I’m not doing this,” she said quietly. “I don’t make the love. I just follow it… Fan it… Protect it. Yours and Castiel’s— ” She paused, a smile blooming at her mouth as tears broke down her cheeks, curved and fell off her chin. “Your love was written in the stars.” 

Dean choked off a sob and it curdled in the back of his throat. “It ain’t fate if you’re the one aligning ‘em.”

She leaned into him, breath whisper-soft. _Goddammit, Sam was right;_ she smelled of carnations. “The only magic Cas ever needed to love you was your permission,” she said, then, she let the hilt go, left the blade to bite into Dean’s palm as she backed away.

Then, she blinked out. The negative space she left behind was bigger than the Grand Canyon and twice as deep.

——— 

The dagger was oddly heavy in his hands without someone else at the handle. The intricate turns of the gold design chewed up the bedroom light and made it look surreal. _None of this is real—_

Dean tried to swallow, didn’t know how long his jaw had been slack, but his mouth was dry enough that it could’ve been forever. He remembered to breathe— _in and out is how that goes_ —but it didn’t stop the spinning. The room was basically a Tilt-A-Whirl. He’d taken Sam on one once, in the summer of ‘95. Watched him puke out every ounce of the blue raspberry cotton candy after.

He dropped it. The knife cracked against the cement floor and spun to a stop near the trim. What it didn’t do was disappear— _It should have disappeared._ Fallen through the fever dream of a world Dean had two feet firmly planted in.

“She’s lying,” he said. It had to have been at least the third time now, but he couldn’t stop repeating it. Maybe if he kept saying it, it would Tulpatize and become true. Only, no monsters came— no more distractions. It was only Cas who answered.

“I don’t think she is, Dean.” 

“Then, we find another way. We always find another way. Winchesters and their loopholes, right?” 

Cas perked. “I’m open to suggestions?” But his voice was weak and unsteady, not getting any better as the minutes ticked by. He still had a hand on Dean’s calf, but he hadn’t even tried to get up off the floor. Dean realized maybe he couldn’t, and finally forced himself to turn.

Cas was pale. A drool of blood crested over the back of one hand, spilled, and disappeared into his shirt again. Dean stared at it. Watched another dribble crest and fall, soak up. The white letters were turning pink now— That was Dean’s favorite shirt. Cas was dying in Dean’s favorite shirt.“I got nothing…” he said. 

Cas took a choppy breath, finally relenting to the wall to support him. He had eyes on the door, but he didn’t look like he expected anyone to come through it. “And Sam?” he asked. 

Dean just shook his head. _Sam can’t come down right now. He’s dragging the shadows…_

“Then… I’ll do it.”

“I’m not asking you to do this.”

“You don’t have to.”

Fresh tears burned Dean’s eyes. Whatever dam he had walling off the waterworks was disintegrating more and more by the second, so he chewed his cheeks. Didn’t let up till the tangy taste of blood forced him to. 

He couldn’t do this— couldn’t have this conversation. He wobbled and snatched the first aid kit from the nightstand instead, crumpled to the floor beside Cas and got tangled up there again. He wasn’t sure if he should touch—if he’d ever be able to stop once he did. “Dean?” He pushed past it, plucked the t-shirt at the hem and lifted. Frowned at the sagging, saturated wad of gauze Cas had taped over Dean’s handiwork. The blood slicked down the front of him was tacky at the edges, drying and layering with each new spill. This had gone too long. 

“You trying to hide this from me?” he asked quietly.

Cas watched him. His eyes burned. “Trying to, yes,” he said finally. “How did I do?”

“Swing and a miss, I’d say.”

Dean got to work, peeling the tape and tossing the medical waste as near to the basket as he could get it with shaky hands and a head with a day pass to all the worst carnival rides. It was easier this way; doing it with busy hands and a dozen excuses not to look Cas in the eye. But Cas stopped him, hand over Dean’s and fingers cold. “Let me do this.”

Dean shook him off. “No.”

“Dean—”

“Good news is, it sounds like you’re getting out— Good as new.” He frowned at the tape roll as it reached the end. It was doubled in on itself, pulling cardboard fibers off the reel. He tried to work the end loose, failed. 

“Please, stop—”

Dean threw it. “Fuck—!” and it bounced off the wall, disappeared on the far side of the room under the bed. “No! You’re not doing this!” he demanded. He bunched the gauze up and held it to Cas’ chest. “I made my choice when I took the Mark. I’m not putting this on you now. If this is how it goes--” He swallowed, it caught in his throat and threatened to choke him. “It’s how it goes,” he managed. “Just promise me you an’ Sammy’ll take care of each other. That you won’t come looking. Or break open any more primordial lockboxes.”

Cas stared at him. “You’re a stubborn ass,” he growled, and for better or worse, it finally got Dean to look up. The blue in his eyes nearly laid Dean flat. He had an air about him vaguely reminiscent of his old self; chin high and neck tight. Brow so laced you could run a mile in it. But, it was only a veneer now and all the cracks were showing; the pain in his eyes cut down to the bone. “I know you think you’re protecting me, but you’re not! There’s no easy choice here! There’s not even a choice!” He pulled Dean’s hand off, gauze and all, pushed him back. “You’re right, I don’t want to do this— I would give _anything_ not to have to do this— But, it’s the only way I even have a chance to see you again! _it’s worse_ knowing I could have helped you and I didn’t— _”_ He stumbled, tears biting his eyes and chin wobbling as he tried to hold onto his resolve like a lifeline. _“Do you understand? It’s worse!”_

Dean finally cracked, a sob spilling out of him that he couldn’t’ve stopped if he tried. He crawled into Cas, nudged forehead to forehead, as the urge to calm him suddenly overwhelmed. He wanted to bury himself in Cas’ arms, drag him to the bed and pull the comforter up over their heads until this all went away. “Okay—” he relented.

Cas tried to peel away, fingers pulling Dean’s hands off as his head butt into the wall, nowhere to go. “Please, I just need you to listen—” he begged again, desperation splitting his words. “This isn’t like leaving me at the bar. This doesn’t protect me—”

“No— I hear you,” Dean choked again. He held Cas’ face, didn’t let him pull away. “I hear you, okay? I’m listening—” 

Cas hesitated, chest jumping and both hands at Dean’s wrists. “What does that mean?”

“It means…” There was a time, not so long ago, that Dean had asked Cas to take his life. A time he truly believed Cas was the only one whom he could burden with the task, but that was before it was there staring at them. Before Alice and her fucking hoodoo knocked Dean’s brick walls down, and he’d gotten a taste of the kind of forever he’d been thirsty for since his first night alone in an hourly motel waiting to see if his dad came back… if Sam came back. 

_Cas would come back. Cas would always come back._

“It means— Yes,” he choked.

Cas blinked, scared eyes eating a wobbly line through his face. “Yes?” he parroted. Maybe he wasn’t sure he heard it right. Maybe Dean wasn’t being clear. So Dean nodded, said it again.

“I—yes. You’re right. I shouldn’t have left you at the bar— We were safer together. I’m listening this time. I trust you. Will you help me?”

Cas melted into Dean’s touch, hands shaking at Dean’s wrists, sliding down his arms to the elbow. He nodded, jerky. “I already told you, you don’t have to ask,” he whispered.

Dean buried his face in Cas chest, hot skin and bloody shirt, he let the dam break. Sobbed. Clung to him. “When you gonna quit being my angel?”

Cas held him tight. “Just once more,” he promised.

Somewhere, in another world, they were happy. Dean was sure of that now. There was at least some twisted comfort in that, even if it was useless to him now. 

 

Dean wasn’t sure if they’d stilled, or if the room around them had finally slowed down, but he lost track of how long he lay listening to Cas heart slow. How many mental notes he made of the brush of Cas’ hands, the feel of his arms, the way his thumb traced the shell of Dean’s ear. “How much longer can we put this off?” he mumbled into Cas’ heat. He didn’t pick his head up, didn’t want to see how pale Cas was or how tired he was getting. 

It took Cas a minute, and his words came on slow, but he answered. “Do you want the truth or a lie?” 

Something deep and painful woke up in the middle of Dean’s chest and curled. “I could use a really good lie right about now.”

Cas took a breath, long and thoughtful. Moved a leg so Dean could scoot a little further in. “I say we have breakfast,” he hummed, threading fingers through Dean’s hair. He tipped closer, spoke quietly into his ear, whiskers brushing Dean’s temple. “Then, I’d like if you would take me for a drive. There’s a beautiful spot in Bennett Springs with a waterfall and, I’m told, some great trout fishing. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure to go?”

“I haven’t,” Dean said, squeezing his eyes shut. He imagined the crystal blue waters and sprigs of sun through the trees. Cas sprawled out on a blanket near the bank with cheap sunglasses and no shirt.

“...Then we should stop by.”

Dean nodded, agreed.

“After… we could come back. Take another shower,” a smile kissed his voice, “crawl back into bed. Sleep. I like your memory foam.”

Dean hummed. “Maybe wake up and move the dresser?” he prompted. 

Cas paused, fingers falling down Dean’s neck. “Yes,” he said earnestly. “Definitely wake up and move the dresser. I owe you, after all.”

Dean finally sat up, tears blurring his eyes. “You don’t owe me anything,” he said. He kissed Cas’ face, tasted his tears. Dug a smile from his gut and pasted it on. “That sounds like a good day,” he agreed, face buried at Cas’ jaw. “That’s what we did today, okay?”

Cas nodded. “Yes, okay.”

 

It was now or never, so Dean collected himself and peeled up from the floor intent on getting the knife. He swung past it instead, heart hammering his ears, didn’t stop till he was nearly buried in his own closet. He threaded fingers behind his head, tried to breathe as the panic crept over him like a noose.

This is what a corner felt like. There was no turning around, no going back. He wasn’t sure what scared him more: getting swallowed by the Darkness or making Cas live with this decision. The worst part was, he’d never know; he wouldn’t live to see the fallout of either one. 

He wanted to scream, but he buried it. 

“What are you doing?”

Dean stared at the stocked hangars. “You gonna play angel,” he swallowed, “then You gotta suit up.” 

He settled on the steel gray one, eyed a deep blue tie to match. He barely glanced the mirror as he tried to coax his fingers into tying a Windsor. But, what the hell did it matter? The messier the tie, the more authentic, and there was nothing in his reflection except his own red eyes and scared face anyway. On his way back around, he stooped and finally collected the knife too. 

He squatted, fixing his best serious furrow as he slipped the knotted tie over Cas’ head. It was the blazer next; one arm at a time, going easy over his shoulder. Dean brushed dust from the lapel, sat back and took him in. Cas looked ridiculous. Loose tie and oversized blazer over that spent band shirt, but he looked at Dean, and he was perfect. Nothing could cloud those eyes. 

Dean combed a rooster tail of his’ hair down. “Where have you been?” he asked wistfully.

“I might ask you the same.”

“I guess we gotta add Alice to the Christmas card list, huh?”

“You give her too much credit.”

Dean nodded, swallowed. “Yeah, well, you know me; always a giver. I just wanted her to feel involved, you know?” And it was more than he hoped, but he got an easy smile out of Cas for that one. 

It swallowed up as soon as Dean brought out the knife. Something shifted in Cas’ expression and changed it irrevocably. Something small and hollow that only lived on the faces of widows. Dean had seen it enough times in cases. On his dad. Sam… 

_It should never be on Cas._

“You tell me if you want out,” he pled. “I won’t be mad—”

“No.” Cas white-knuckled the grip, shoulders jumping as he fought an uneven breath. “I just— I want it to be okay.”

Dean nodded. “It’s okay now— I’m okay.” He grabbed the back of Cas’ neck, pulled their foreheads together. Took a long, slow breath. He waited quietly as Cas’ free hand curled into the front of his shirt, blade tipping up and dropping again a moment later. Cas pulled away, head banging into the wall. Tear-stained face and fevered cheeks only to be outdone by the purple bloodless circles under his eyes now. “I don’t— I—”

“Okay—” Dean brought him back, with a soft touch and another deep breath. Forehead to forehead, he ran hands down Cas’ cheeks, curled and finally rested at the back of his neck again. “You wanna know what I thought the first time I saw you?” he asked quietly. For a moment, he thought Cas wouldn’t bite, but he never did disappoint.

“Tell me.”

“I thought, _This guy’s a fucking showboat.”_ Dean cracked a smile and watched it spread to Cas again, relished the surprised, breathless chuckle it culled. “Big Angel Man comin’ in that barn burning out the lights, with your wings cocked and your head corkscrewed to the side… Truth be told, it scared me shitless. But then, you looked at me, and… And it felt like I knew you. Like I really _knew you_ , only, I couldn’t explain how.”

Dean closed his eyes, he clasped a hand over Cas’ at the handle, raised the tip to his own chest, guided it over his heart. Castiel’s breath stuttered and Dean wrenched the back of his neck, pressed their foreheads harder. “The second time,” he said slowly. His voice held by a string. “The second time I saw you, I tried to remember you in Hell—which was crazy because all I was trying to do at that time was forget. But, _I swear,_ it felt like you had a piece of me… Like you’d found me there, and I was so broken you couldn’t sew it all back up, but you didn’t wanna leave any behind— so you just… kept it. Like you knew it would be safer with you.”

“Dean—” Cas sobbed, his fingers sticky under Dean’s. He tried to pull his hand away, but Dean held him strong. Hot tears ate down Dean’s face. 

“Don’t fight it,” he begged. He didn’t dare open his eyes.

“By the thousandth time… I knew you had a piece of me because I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. And I don’t know if that’s cuz you kept it, or I gave it to you, but either way, I need you to know that I’m dyin’ happy. Because of you. You’re my happy ending— And when your time comes… a long time from now— I know you’ll find me again. All you gotta do is follow the piece. Right? Just like always.” His throat knotted. “Now tell me how you find me, Cas.”

Cas trembled. “Follow my heart,” he whispered, and Dean smiled.

“Atta boy,”he said, and he tugged the blade into his chest. 


	21. Third Eye

TWENTY-ONE

Third Eye

✣✣✣

“I tried ta warn ya, Fish.”


	22. The Field Where I Died

TWENTY-TWO

The Field Where I Died

✣✣✣

The spell cracked and broke, spit Cas out the other side with the cold concrete under his ass and the last ribbons of sunshine dancing through the ceiling beams like geese on a calm lake. He swallowed a scream and choked on a cold breath— _Fresh air, decorated with dust like organic glitter._ It had the familiar hoppy bite from what seemed like a million years ago, and he knew he was back in the distillery— _Back to the start._

For a moment—one heartbreaking split of time—he was sure it’d all been a dream. Nothing more substantial than Rowena and her cascading red hair and long, taunting fingers. But, his hands jerked apart and the gold-handled blade dropped onto his lapel with a heavy thud. There was blood— _so much blood—_ and an anguished scream finally worked its way out of him. It pitched off the hollow walls, bounced back to him, petered and raw as it twisted into a sob. Hot tears soaked his temples, drown the sunlight and turning it liquid. 

He covered his face, tried to push away the memory of Dean’s face as the knife slid between his ribs. “I’m sorry— I’m so, so sorry—” he repented, but the distillery didn’t care. It had no comfort to offer. He tried to curl onto his side, but his numb legs didn’t want to respond. He was never getting up again. He was sure of that.

He didn’t even want to.

“What’s all this?”

Castiel startled, looked up to see Crowley standing above him, curiosity crawling through his brow, and bloody, swollen lip smeared onto his chin. “I mean, I know what it looks like,” he amended, “but I didn’t do it.” He shuffled closer, eyes sliding down Cas and back up again, finally settling on Cas’ face with a cocked eyebrow and deep frown.

“You’re back,” Cas rasped.

“I’ve been here, thank you.” Crowley bent, plucked the blade. “Happy to get that for you, actually,” he mumbled holding it up. Dean’s blood flashed off the blade and Cas screwed his eyes shut— _had to—_ as his stomach churned. “Now, where did we get this?” Crowley hummed.

Cas held his breath, hoped Crowley would just turn it on him, finish him off in one swift motion. No witnesses and no questions asked. Castiel wouldn’t fight it, it was the least he deserved. But when Crowley didn’t, Cas cracked an eye again. 

Crowley stood, stretched above him, precariously turning the blade between his fingers, the sharp edge catching the light and spitting red fireworks on every rotation. “And just what exactly are you now?” he asked.

“You know who I am,” Cas snapped. His chest ached, fingers shivering so severely he couldn’t have held his own tie.

“Do I? Because you’re not the same Castiel who was here a moment ago.”

“No—” He thought of Rowena, the version of her that’d haunted him at the heels. Thought of how right she’d been. “I’m the fish.” _I’m the one who drowned Dean Winchester._

Crowley sighed, slipped the dagger into his breast pocket and settled that devilish look downward again. “Well, I don’t know about that, but you certainly don’t have wings anymore... or pants,” he added.

Castiel frowned, suddenly wrestling the hit of the uncanny valley from the wave of grief that was trying to swallow him whole. “What?”

“That underwear is an… interesting touch.”

Cas’ stomach flipped, heart hitting his ears again in a full hammer. He spread a hand open and blinked past the blood to see to the thin red outline of his burn.He struggled to sit as his shoulder howled and chest ached. His numb legs were still so fucking slow to respond— He looked down himself, sliding a hand through the sticky, wet shirt, Dean’s _Eat Me_ boxers— Only the fever was gone. Everything else was the same, down to Castiel’s bare feet. Everything was supposed to have reset, but, this— 

This was the same timeline.

_And he’d seen it,_ he realized.

There was no Rowena. It had been Castiel remembering. His grace must have been tapping the sequence of events and running them together during his weakest moments. 

“Dean still has it… ” he puffed. He looked up, hooked Crowley’s pant leg, urgency burning fresh. “I need your help—”

——— 

Not everything was supposed to reset with the thrust of that blade, Castiel reminded himself. Not Dean. And, by proxy, now that meant not Castiel too. 

Because, they were linked. Tied together by a string of grace; the one part of the spell not even Alice herself had factored in.

He fumbled over the brush grass and straightened as the hill spread to flatland in front of him. The horizon worked the last kiss of sunset below the mountains and left a star-seeded sky in a broad expanse. The Juanita’s sign stretched up to it with open arms, the Impala beside, upside down and billowing exhaust. Down the road, a feed truck purred with its nose in the ditch and trailer jackknifed. A gust of late summer wind broke through his blazer, whispered memories of the back of that Dodge and the smell of Dean dying.

Cas’ knees went out. He collapsed on the bank, caught another drool of blood from his open chest, felt it slip between his fingers as he tried to grab a breath. The world tipped to the side, threatened to spin and go black. 

“It’s usually a bad sign when you spring a leak,” Crowley offered helpfully from a few paces back.

Cas bit the nausea back and got up again, stumbled into the gravel lot. He passed the Impala, couldn’t see anyone at first, but as he got closer, he noticed Sam’s feet behind the splintered windshield. The rest of him was sprawled across the upturned roof, lap belts hanging from the seats and swinging against his hair. He was moving, coming to, shoes and clothes like he’d worn the first day, except cleaner now— minus the blood. 

Cas kept moving. He scanned the lot, blood spattering the ground beneath him as the fat, yellow moon smiled back, heavy on the horizon. “Dean—?”

His voice caught in his throat, already spent when he spotted him a few yards away, socked feet half buried in the easy summer shadows. His poor, tired heart picked up pace one more time. 

Cas collapsed beside him and pulled Dean’s face over expecting the worst. Instead a pair of glazed, candy apple eyes looked back, and the tears found him again. “God, Dean—”

Dean blinked, lazy and slow, treading the barrier of worlds Castiel’s grace was holding him in, but he tracked Cas in spite of it. “Hey, Angel,” he whispered, words slurring. A little smile found the edges of his lips. “Did you see the stars?”

Cas sobbed, let it twist into the laugh he needed it to be. “Yes, Dean, I see them,” he said. He fumbled a numb hand under Dean’s shirt, felt what was left of his grace bite back, sputter and burn under his fingertips. 

It took Dean a minute, but his color rallied. His body animated.

His heart mended.

After that, Castiel only knew the smell of the grass, and sharp gravel. The feeling of not being able to pick himself up again. 

The sound of Dean shouting his name, suddenly so far away.


	23. Requiem

TWENTY-THREE

Requiem

✣✣✣

Castiel stared at the open ambulance bed, the red and blue lights painting the empty lot in colors the moon couldn’t conjure. He wasn’t sure how it got there— _How he did_. He shifted on the rocks, felt them bite into the bottoms of both feet. 

He was alone, the lot empty. The Impala off. No more exhaust fumes chortling from the engine. The dark had taken the road away, and the feed truck with it. Left it as a memory. The ambulance lights only went as far as Castiel, but they were suddenly blinding. 

Still, they pulled him forward, and like the wind, he moved easily. Rounded the corner to see bare feet splayed outside a white hospital sheet. _Like the morgue,_ was his first thought; Dean and Sam walking him through a body’s checklist as a mortician nodded along. Only, he wasn’t at the morgue. There was no badge clipped to his lapel. He checked just to make sure, came back with blood and dirt on his hand. He looked down at himself, tried to understand before angling back to the bed and getting caught on those dirty soles again. 

He swallowed as the fog rolled in, curled around the ambulance, prickled his skin.

Strings of memories came back to him in bursts; _Dean’s eyes, the stars, the innocent smile on his face._ “No,” he puffed, and he found feet on his dead legs, pushed forward across the lot. “No, I saved him—”

But, nothing moved in his chest.

Someone suddenly hooked him at the elbow and pulled him over. He hit the ground hard, the stars spinning above him, no rhyme or reason to the way they turned as Alice popped above him again. She tossed a leg over his body, hypodermic needle between her teeth, and repainted ruby red lips catching the ambulance light’s reflection. Her eyes were masked in shadow. The oversized coat draping her shoulders made her small. “Boy, when you roll the dice, you really roll ‘em!” she said from around the handle. She shoved him flat.

“Alice—? What are you doing? Let me go!”

She spit the needle into her hand, bit off the cap. The coat fell down her arms. Dirty and torn and familiar in an other-worldly way. _His coat,_ he realized, and he tried to fight her off. Only, his arms were too heavy. “I don’t understand,” he huffed. “You said I could find a way—I found a way!”

“Yeah, you did. Only, turns out the Darkness doesn’t like getting dicked,” she said. “And it doesn’t matter how fucking proud of you I am for finding it, the truth of the matter is, it’s gonna take what it’s owed— Or try… ” 

She stabbed the needle into his chest, eyes wild, and his heart suddenly kicked at the back of his ribs, unsteady and unsure. He struggled a long, labored breath. Blinked up at her, mouth lolling and chest way too heavy. He grabbed her wrists as she tossed her hair, sat back on her knees, waiting. Watching. To Castiel, it seemed like the moon was dimming. It bloated behind her head, the edges of it blurring out as a dark fog nipped it away. 

Somewhere in the distance, a medical machine screamed a long electric sound.

She frowned at the horizon, scanned. Pulled a scalpel from her back pocket, and turned it in her fingers. He found his voice again, weak and small. “Please let me go, I need to get to the ambulance— I need to get to Dean.” 

She shook her head. “That’s not Dean, honey—” and jammed the blade in his chest. A rush of hot liquid at his side suddenly teased his lungs awake. He breathed— didn’t realize how hard it was to do before. His heart hammered. His chest felt like it wanted to explode.

She wiped the sweat from her brow, left a long, black smear on her forehead from the dirty coat as she fished something new from the dirt beneath her; a white sticky pad, promptly pasted it to his chest. He wasn’t wearing a shirt anymore— but, he didn’t know where it went.

_It was cut open._

Phantom hands suddenly grabbed his face, held him still. Someone Castiel couldn’t see, but who touched a whole helluva lot like Dean, and relief washed through Alice’s face as he turned into it. “Thank Jebus for fuck’s sake—” she gasped. “Stay right there—” 

She checked his pulse as the moon ebbed and then sputtered bright. 

Castiel tried to understand, tried to stop the spinning, but she grabbed his face. “Are you listening, Castiel—?”

“I— Yes,” he managed.

Her hands came off, fingers splayed by her head as she crawled off and backed away. Her repainted ruby lips were smeared now. That hair that was perpetually falling in her face, was instead, a perfectly tucked disaster. “Good, because, I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but it’ll be back. Don’t forget.” Then, “Clear!”

——— 

Castiel woke up, Dean shaking him. “You’re dreaming, Cas. Hey, wake up. It’s just a nightmare—” 

He peeled from the mattress and onto his elbows, blinked as Dean’s room speckled in. It felt like the bright overhead light from before had burned into his retinas. “You’re just dreaming,” Dean said again. His voice was close. Bleary, but on guard. He had a bed-warmed palm spread wide over Castiel’s chest.

“Yeah— Yes.” Cas cleared his throat, finally turned and nodded to the face peering at him through the cool midnight light. The blue from Dean’s digital alarm was just bright enough to sink into Dean’s frown. “I’m awake. I’m— Thank you.”

Dean’s expression didn’t budge. He had hair matted on one side like he’d hit the pillow and went lights out for the first time in a while. _Of course Castiel would be the one to wake him from his first good sleep in months._

“Which one was it?” he asked. His hand stayed. He was far too experienced at this already, and for whatever reason, it rubbed Cas wrong. He shouldn’t be bothering Dean with this.

He played dumb, wiping the sweat from his hairline as he sat up the rest of the way. “Which what?”

“Which dream?”

“No, it was… It’s fine. Go back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.” He pushed the covers back, slid out.

“Where’re you going?”

“Water.”

“Lie down. I’ll get it.”

“No. Stop coddling me.”

Dean groaned, flopped face-first into the pillow as Cas took his warm feet across the cold floor. He headed out, down the hall, didn’t stop till hospital-grade exhaustion found him in the library. It was incredible how much energy recovering used up. 

He surrendered a hip into the table, and his ribs flared up fresh as he twisted. It reminded him that bones mend, but only at a frustratingly slow pace. And suddenly, he was watching the shadows again, fixated. Half expecting them to slither out like a botched game of hide-and-seek, and half expecting he would just wake up again; like he was trapped in some kind of endless nesting doll of dreams. He scrubbed hands over his face, ground the heels into his eyes. 

Dean brushed past, purple tee, and boxer-clad. Hair standing up on the back of his head. He snatched a wooden chair and spun it facing out. “Sit,” he said pointing but not breaking stride. Through the room and off into the kitchen, he came back a moment later with a tall glass of water and some slightly less unruly hair. 

“I’m not coddling you,” he said, offering it.

“Then, what would you like to call it?” 

Dean landed a soft kiss as his answer, buried it just to the right of Castiel’s nose. The placement was awkward enough— _innocent enough_ —that it was destined to unearth a smile, and it did. “That’s not as flawless an argument as you think it is,” Cas mumbled, playfully pushing Dean’s face away.

Only, Dean didn’t smile back. He had that telltale concern tattooed to his face. “It was the Alice one,” he said; not a question. 

Cas looked away. It crawled into his gut and set stakes. “It’s not a nightmare, Dean. It’s a memory.” 

“Alice wasn’t there.”

“But, what if she was—?”

Dean set the water down, grabbed Castiel’s hands. “No, Alice was not there.”

“How can you be so sure?” 

“Because, thanks to you, I wasn’t the one laid out flat. So, I can name everyone who was.” Before Cas could stop him, Dean defaulted into his list, counting each person on a new finger. “You, and me. Sammy with a busted shoulder. Three—”

“Three EMTs. Yes, I know, but—”

“Three EMTs,” Dean repeated calmly. “Kathy, Citlali, and some guy they kept calling Hog. I think cuz he kinda looked like a young Boss Hog.” He puffed his cheeks out for a moment to illustrate, and, God help him, Castiel smiled again. “They worked on you while Sammy cried— an’ I mean, _like a baby_ , Cas _._ Snot bubbling while he stood there holding onto his arm, asking what the hell was going on, cuz his egg got uncooked.”

“But not you,” Cas said. “Crying.”

“No.” Dean shook his head, an overly-animated frown crossing his face. “No. I was too busy sweating the EMTs.” He slipped fingers under the hem of Cas’ shirt, dragged lines over his hip bones with both thumbs. Whispered, “And, besides, I knew you were gonna be fine.”

That much was a lie, Castiel knew. After they’d shocked him out of aFib, he’d been plenty present enough to see Dean leaning over him with a face full of tears, begging the EMTs to help.

He buried into Dean’s shoulder, tried to forget the memory of that expression like he tried to forget the ash. He was confident he’d eventually lose it in the sound of Dean’s breathing. Dean relaxed into the table, took Cas with him in a gentle hug.

“They got you back…” he continued. He was quieter now. Fingers stroking the back of Cas’ hair. “Got you in the ambulance, and that was it. Not even Crowley stuck around to watch the show. The rest you remember; the hospital. The surgeries. The two-week stay under the dumbest fake name I’ve ever seen. And here we are.” 

Cas pulled back, “Excuse me? Dumb?”

“Oh, that’s a surprise, Beyonce? No, wait—” Dean held up a finger. “It was B. Beyonce,” he clarified. “What the hell did the B stand for?”

“Well, Beyonce is technically her first name, so…”

Dean stared at him, mouth a deadpan line. “Are you telling me your Fed name was Beyonce Beyonce?” 

“She’s largely lauded as royalty, Dean.”

“That’s not—” and then it was his turn to smile. He kissed Cas, soft, mindful of his broken ribs as he slid up Cas’ sides. “I had to ask to see Agent Beyonce every time I needed let into the ICU,” he whispered into him. “Do you realize that?”

“You use musician names all the time.”

“Yeah, that ain’t the same. You’re banned from making your own IDs.”

“You can’t ban me.”

“Sam has the laminator and I have Nair; he wouldn’t take the chance.” 

Castiel sighed, let the smile sit between them. He wasn’t so dumb that he couldn’t enjoy this moment-- _all the moments_ \--for what they were, even if they were spurred by whatever dark thing he had knocking on his brain every time he tried to sleep. “You’re right,” he said, finally. “I don’t know why I keep doing this.”

“Hey, at least you’re healing up. I had to chase you into the library to bring you back down this time.”

Castiel scrubbed an eye. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“No, hey, look at me.” Dean straightened him. Even in the dark library light, his eyes were turning those greens. “Cas, there’s nothing wrong with you. I get it, okay? That spell—that whole thing—it messed you up seven ways from Sunday. It messed us both up. And it’s just gonna take some time.” Cas tried to look away, but Dean brought his chin back. His eyebrows were high, sincerity in his expression like a warm blanket. “So, if I gotta wake you up every day for the next fifty years to remind you it’s over— _that we made it_ — I will. Okay?”

Castiel closed his eyes, nodded. Melted as Dean kissed his face. His voice was warm, but his body was warmer. “Now let’s go back to the room,” he whispered, all saccharin and spice. “I was having a good dream and I wanna tell you about it.” He skirted Cas’ stomach, knuckles brushing down his hips. Up the back of his thighs feathery-light.

Cas caught Dean’s bottom lip with a kiss, tasted it. He still smelled faintly of firewood and brush grass from his two-hour afternoon detour through a local campsite to follow up on reports of a haunting. Sam was working the case, but it just so happened the witness was down closer to Lebanon than Leawood where the bodies were found. It’d still taken everything Cas had to get Dean out.

It was good. It was _normal_ in the stupid, skewed way they understood it. “Lead the way.”

Dean hummed, took Cas’ hand, lead him back to the bedroom. The table lamp was on now, it spilled light into the corridor, and Cas knew they’d end up wrapping the rest of the night up with it on. The truth was, Dean slept with it on more than he didn’t, and Castiel wasn’t in a place where he thought either one of them could stand to poke too many holes in that. 

Dean closed the door behind them, kissed Cas’ neck as he walked their hips together. “You smell good,” he hummed.

“You smell like camp smoke.”

Dean pulled back with a crooked smirk. “Alright, Queen B. I didn’t shower. Ya caught me.”

Castiel laughed. “Where’d you even find that badge? I thought I’d lost it.”

Dean slipped hands under Cas’ shirt, tipped him into the wall, mindful of his healing ribs. He kissed Castiel’s neck again. “It was in your coat,” he mumbled against his skin. 

Cas’ heart skipped. He grabbed Dean’s wrist, stopped him. “My what?”

“Your… uh, coat,” Dean said again, more carefully. 

Cas suddenly couldn’t swallow. His mouth was cotton. He remembered sloughing it off in the bar, and he hadn’t seen it since—

Since it was draped over small shoulders in front of the bloated moon. 

_Remember, Castiel._

It suddenly didn’t feel like a dream anymore. It was all tangible again. 

He snaked a hand under Dean’s shirt, fingered the handprint scar. Nothing bit back this time, the grace used up. “Dean, what if she was there?” he asked quietly, staring at the shape his hand made under the fabric. “Alice. What if it’s not over?”

Dean thought on it, but only for a moment. “Wouldn’t matter,” he said. He sandwiched Cas’ palm to his skin, and maybe it wasn’t grace, but something sparked. “Because you an’ me, we’re unbreakable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I realize it was not revealed that Cas used Beyonce's name as a handle until after this, but that's just the magic of me taking so long to complete this.
> 
> **If you enjoyed this (or hated it) or want to come accurately accuse me of being a masochist, [you can find me on tumblr, as always](http://winchester-reload.tumblr.com/) Or leave a comment here.


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